Count Me In
by iceSTEP
Summary: Klaus Mikalson has been exchanging emails with Caroline for almost two years. It is the only real relationship he has that isn't blocked by cameras or the facade of Hollywood. It is all put to a tenuous test when he accidentally meets her in Virginia. It might have all been easier if she hadn't decided she hated him the second time they officially meet.
1. Chapter 1

**AN/Alright I wrote this a while ago. I've been writing a lot on and off for a while but haven't posted anything in a long time, it's a newish account. Let me know what you think and whether I should post more, also no beta so go easy. Happy reading**

_Okay. So question of the day: what would you do with a million dollars if you won the lottery?_

Caroline typed the email underneath her swing out table connected to her chair. She didn't have the energy to concentrate on the lecture that morning. She was taking this class because Elena had wanted them to take one together.

_Intro to Biology_

It wouldn't be so bad if that hot senior Jesse was in here to except he took Bio 2. It hadn't been all bad though, she'd helped him study just last week for a test. Granted it had actually been ALL studying but it was still nice.

The response came earlier than it normally did. She had a feeling Nick either woke up to early to respond or slept in too late. It was probably the former seeing as she sometimes woke up to emails that were sent at five or six in the morning.

Caroline was a morning person but she wasn't quite on that level yet.

**Do you want me to say I'd give it all away to charity?**

Caroline could feel the sarcasm radiating from the email and she rolled her eyes before she typed back an answer.

_Not if you wouldn't -.- but seriously would you just do like normal things...the mortgage…a new house…an island? A car? Oh and then you'd have to buy me a car to…_

**Subtle, I don't know probably the lavish stuff, I can't help myself ;) But I HAVEN'T won the lottery Caroline. **

_I said IF, no one actually wins the lottery... BUT there was a study that said the lottery was healthy because it allows people to dream, stops depression. I'm actually trying to be an awesome friend right now._

Caroline sent another message quickly afterwards having thought about his reply.

_Seriously? You wouldn't buy me a car? Your such a selfish millionaire… :P_

**Where did you read that? Yes you've practically pulled me from the dregs of depression. I'll tell you what, I win the lottery and I'll mail you a car.**

Caroline couldn't help the snort of laughter that escaped from her mouth and she suddenly looked up remembering where she was. Dr Maxfield was glaring at her harshly and she could feel the potentially humiliating comment coming out of his mouth that she'd learnt he was renowned for.

"I'd say I was glad you found the muscular system so amusing Ms Forbes but we all know you've been texting the past half hour."

Okay maybe she wasn't as subtle as she thought she was.

"Shut up Stefan it was totally humiliating! Dr Maxfield is such an asshole," Caroline threw one of her more pointy shoes at Stefan who was currently sprawled across her bed laughing at her recount of this morning's lecture.

"Amen, why are you even taking a biology class?" Stefan said amusement still lingering in his voice as he caught Caroline's shoe. She'd never actually try and hurt him with it.

"Me and Elena were taking it together because we thought Dr Maxfield was cute…" Stefan laughed again and Caroline threw the other shoe.

"Oh and Jesse," Caroline added as an afterthought causing Stefan to roll his eyes.

"Caroline. Why don't you start focusing on you? You can't play the best friend in your own life. You're so much better than that." He told her earnestly sitting up to rest against her headboard.

Caroline sighed as she slumped into the desk chair a foot away. "I always thought I had everything figured out. I mean I was in all the clubs, I'm not stupid."

Stefan snorted in interruption. "You were valedictorian and got a scholarship," he corrected her and she smiled.

"It's just every time I think I might be happy. I'm not. I mean I majored in drama for fun, I love it but I don't know where to go with it. I mean the only other thing that I remember enjoying was planning parties and…singing and I don't really do that anymore. I just spend so much time doing what I think other people want me to do."

She admitted spinning in her chair as she stared at the ceiling.

"Have you told anyone that?" he asked after a moment.

"No? I mean I don't know why I'm bothering you with it. Except you brought it up," she smiled as she stood up and sat beside him.

"You're MEANT to bother me Caroline. It's why I'M your best friend," he said smirking as he threw his hand over her shoulder and she nudged him in return.

"Except I'm kind of worried your cyber bestie's edging me out of a job." He pouted and Caroline rolled her eyes.

"He is not"

"You're right, I'm still convinced you'll meet one day, fall in love and have a million babies." Stefan told her wistfully.

"And you'd still be my best friend." Caroline pointed out allowing his teasing's for once.

"Exactly," he shot back quickly and it made Caroline smile like he'd wanted her too.

"But seriously how long have you been cyber loving it up with this guy now? Like two years? That's practically a relationship."

"We've never even seen each other; I don't even know his last name." Caroline pointed out and Stefan sighed.

"Your right, he's probably like fifty with a beer gut and no hair." Caroline shuddered at the thought.

"Maybe, it doesn't matter. I mean I like him but then I remember he's basically not a real person. I don't want to ruin what we have by shattering our little reality." Caroline said shrugging as she hoped off the bed. Her phone beeped.

"How does he know?" Stefan joked rolling his eyes. But he couldn't help but smile when she read her message.

It was how Stefan figured out what Caroline's real smile looked like. He saw it whenever she was talking to him. It was different from her cheerleading smile, or polite company smile or her drunken one.

It was purely Caroline and it radiated around her.

She had met him in her last year of high school in a chat room. It was when she was college this college that. She'd somehow met him on one of those sights and after a few constant questions they'd became pen pals. She was pretty sure he was some kind of teacher or assistant.

He was definitely older than her. She could tell by the way he wrote. Caroline talked about college a lot so she knew he knew she was around nineteen early twenties. They didn't do ages or pictures or anything incriminating to their actual identity or whereabouts.

But they'd managed to talk about some pretty intimate stuff over the course of two years. Things that slipped out about their families, what their friends did or what his sister did to annoy him. He wasn't close with his mother and didn't speak to his dad like she didn't hers.

It was oddly amazing to share parts of herself she wouldn't to someone she didn't REALLY know. Except Caroline felt like she did know him and she was pretty sure he knew her to. They had a rhythm that she wasn't sure she ever wanted to let go of.

They'd never talked about meeting so they hadn't.

Caroline was positive it was a bad idea, unlike Stefan and her friends. Anything that good couldn't actually be that good in reality. She was selfish.

He was the highlight of her lows and the addiction she couldn't quit.

**Work is awful. Tell me something.**

_The somatic nervous system consists of different nerves responsible for stimulating muscle contraction, including all the non-sensory neurons connected with skeletal muscles and skin._

**Well I'd always wondered, I could probably just die now satisfied**

There was barely half a second before he'd written another message that made her laugh turn into a groan.

**You're not STILL helping that invalid with his homework are you? **

_We're studying, besides this is my homework_

Caroline clarified sipping on her coffee as she tried to hammer out all her bio notes over her liquid lunch. Caroline didn't let other people tell her she couldn't do something. So when Dr Maxfield asks her a question in tutorial because HE WILL she'll be ready and smirking whilst she does it!

She had a photographic memory. She should be kicking this class's ass.

**He wants to sleep with you whether or not you actually help him study **

His reply was blunt and fast and made Caroline blush before she started to type back harshly on her phone in the pin drop silent library.

_We are NOT talking about this._ Caroline put her phone down content on ignoring it for the next hour just to bug him. He'd wanted to talk to her after all.

_I thought it was meant to be better if he hasn't tried to immediately trying to jump me? _

Caroline couldn't help herself as the question gnawed at her. She had a horrible track record with men and was trying to be better at it. Was she doing it wrong? Again?

**He hasn't? **

She wasn't replying because she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of being right. She even turned her phone over and after a couple of minutes it buzzed again and a few times more in succession.

**He has, I'm right aren't I?**

…

**Don't be like that love. **

She rolled her eyes when she gave in and read the two messages seven minutes later. Jesse had pulled a few moves early on but was trying to lay it on a little less thick as they broached a more study fuled part of the semester, he was nice and all she just wasn't sure she wanted to date him. And he was clearly looking for something a little more serious than making out at a frat party by the way he was coming onto her.

_Isn't every guy just waiting for a chance to jump us? He's just being gentlemanly about it…_

**Yes, but it just doesn't seem like you like him all that much**

It was true. She liked Jesse because he was cute and available and liked her. Oh and his eyes were ice cream melty. But most importantly he was real; he was an actual person she could touch, see and have a connection with.

She had a connection with Nick but she needed more. She couldn't delude herself into thinking anything more.

_But he's really hot, maybe I'm just trying not be a slut _

Caroline smirked when he didn't reply straight away.

Caroline was eating her dinner in the hall. Well it was probably breakfast seeing as it was cereal. But she loved cereal for dinner. Caroline in all honestly missed cooking. Well more like she missed baking. It helped calm her down.

She'd once made a hundred cupcakes before exams after she'd cleaned everything twice.

She laughed at the memory when her phone buzzed. It was a text from Stefan.

Bestie time. Be ready at seven.

Caroline smiled sending him an '_okay_' even though he hadn't actually asked her if she wanted to go out. She saw she had an email from Nick as well and read it to.

**What are you doing tonight?**

_I'm pretty sure Stefan is friend napping me. He's worried you're stealing me ;) _

Caroline knew it had more to do with their moment in her dorm room where she basically told him she had zero direction in life. Surely there would be pity drinks.

**That's not surprising. I'm probably prettier with better hair**

_Don't let him hear you knock his hair! I'm pretty sure that takes him hours…and I'm not sure seeing as I've never seen you. What are you up to?_

**I have a work thing. It's going to be exciting -.-**

Caroline rolled her eyes at his sarcasm again. She'd always wondered what he did for a living. He wouldn't tell her and about six months ago she'd made herself a game out of guessing his occupation.

Most of time it was just silly jobs that she would state at any time she thought of them.

Although he promised to tell her if she got it right.

_Stock broker _

She typed impulsively. She hadn't picked a suit job in a while. The reply was instantaneous so she knew she was wrong. Damn.

**Nice try but no. I shall talk to you tomorrow, don't get too drunk tonight.**

_Damn. Likewise, good night Nick_

**Goodnight Caroline **

Caroline smiled as she finished off the last of her cereal and made her way back to her dorm to get dressed for her night out. She wondered what Nick was doing.

"We're going to get disgustingly drunk aren't we?" Caroline asked bluntly to Stefan as he dragged her through the door of the bar. Caroline had decided to make a little effort seeing as she hadn't been out since the first week of the semester. She'd pretty much been wasted the whole week, in Hein sight it hadn't been the best idea.

She wore one of her favourite black dresses and matching strappy heels.

"Oh yeah," he told her smirking as he led her by the hand through the throng of people.

"Stefan, please tell me we are NOT in a karaoke bar," Caroline clipped to him as he held her hand tighter clearly worried she might bolt. She noticed the stage and a lot of flashing lights. It was a pretty nice bar but Caroline would not under any circumstances be singing.

That sneaky Salvatore.

"Caroline, we are not in a karaoke bar," he told her slowly and she wanted to hit the smile on his face off. Instead she groaned and ordered her first of what would surely be many drinks.


	2. Chapter 2

When Caroline woke up the next morning she groaned. The light was streaming through her window unforgivingly. She pushed her pillow into her face and rolled over onto her side.

"Good morning!" she heard an annoyingly chirpy voice that could only belong to her other best friend who she was currently avoiding.

Elena.

Caroline was going to tell her to go away so she could sleep in peace when she could suddenly smell an aroma wafting over to her side of the room. She stuck her head up from underneath her pile of pillows, her hair askew in every direction like a Meer cat as she squinted in Elena's smiling direction.

"Did you make me hangover breakfast?" Caroline asked suspiciously before pulling herself up into a sitting position shielding with her hand from the light.

Elena set down the tray on her bedside and shut the blinds. Caroline smiled gratefully at her as Elena handed her some aspirin and water. She was going to need a few minutes before she was up to all the bacon on the plate. It was sitting on a pancake drenched in maple syrup, just the right amount for Caroline.

They all had different versions of the same breakfast. Stefan liked his bacon dripping in sauce and Elena liked more pancakes and Damon liked-

Oh right. Damon.

"Stefan said you had a pretty good night," Elena said grinning although she looked a little nervous. Caroline patted her bed and Elena immediately jumped at the gesture to sit beside her, Caroline tried not to wince at the movement.

"Yeah I actually remember most of it," Caroline said smiling.

"He told me you sang," Elena said and immediately looked like she wanted to take it back. Caroline smiled genuinely though. Despite the hangover, she hadn't had that much fun in a very long time. She knew it had all to do with the singing.

She wouldn't let Stefan know that though…

"I did. It was amazing. I think I found a piece of myself I thought was gone," Caroline said honestly taking the juice that was sitting on the tray and sipping it slowly.

"I think so to," Elena said looking at her friend with happiness. Caroline couldn't help but return it, she knew how much Elena wanted her to forgive her and be friends again. It was hurting her too.

"Caroline, about Damon and I," she began to say but she cut her off.

"It's okay you don't have to. I'm sorry Elena. I get it. I may not like it, I may hate it. But I get it. You can't help who you fall for." She paused smiling at the relief on Elena's face.

"But Damon hurt me in ways I'm still not sure I've fixed. He hurts people Elena; I just don't want you to be one of them. The day I'm okay with this is the day you know you've lost me. I'm always going to watch out for you."

Caroline winced when Elena hugged her. "Thank you Caroline," she said shortly pulling away smiling sheepishly at her fragile friend.

"Now eat up," she told her winking.

Elena couldn't put her finger on it but Caroline seemed brighter. She was smiling like the sun was the greatest thing just like she used to when they were little and she hoped she'd keep smiling.

Elena tried to hide her own smile when she saw the guitar in the corner the next day.

Her best friend was coming back.

"Niklaus Mikalson!"

You had to be Klaus' mother to use his full name like that. Or his very pissed off publicist.

"What? What What?" He groped blindly for his phone holding it away from his ear. He'd gotten wasted at another promotional party. It had been the only way to deal with everyone. Especially his co-star Ruth Rayne, she was the most odious woman Klaus had ever met and he had met a LOT of people.

He was never doing another movie with her as long as he lived. He didn't care if they gave him 10 million dollars for a sequel. He wouldn't do it. The movie itself was set to be a big hit so they'd been promoting it all around America after going to Europe last week. It was exhausting.

Thinking about millions of dollars…

His mind wandered to Caroline and he smiled. He had always enjoyed their questions and topics. He had met Caroline two years ago when he was teaching a few acting classes at NYU. He'd even helped a bit with orientating online through one of those chat rooms. Mostly out of boredom.

She'd ask questions, they'd argue, he'd laugh and they hadn't stopped yet.

It was on and off but it somehow remained constant. It was practically the only constant thing in his life and he treasured it. The mysterious girl who had convinced him that cupcakes could cure sadness. He'd slowly but surely been giving the most secret parts of himself away to her and hadn't even realised it.

The scariest part had been when he realised he didn't care that he had.

Because everyone knew Klaus Mikalson

But no one knew him like his Caroline.

He realised it was toxic and that they were both using each other for emotional stimulation in relationships. He somehow convinced himself that she was at arm's length by not knowing what she looked like or her last name.

He'd caught himself wanting to find her one too many times but realised he never should, because she should never know who he was. It could ruin him, he'd told so many personal things to her and yet nothing at all.

And it would ruin her too. She'd be famous without the perks.

Besides she'd never like him if she knew who he really was; A pretentious-millionaire-actor-notorious-bad-boy-who-could-afford-to-buy-a-lot-of-people-cars.

Without having won the lottery.

No Caroline thought he probably herded sheep for a living and was too embarrassed to tell her.

His publicist Katherine had yelled at him for half an hour on the phone. He'd been snapped leaving the LA party with a model named Eliza something. Klaus briefly hoped it wasn't one of his sister's friends. His stomach lurched at the thought; Rebecca would kill him if he slept with one of her friends.

Again.

He looked around the room and hadn't spotted a girl. In fact he didn't see any trace of sex at all around the room. He was thankful to be back home in his own bed all the same.

He'd promised he'd scrub up and be ready for their next promotion packed day. He lied of course and fell back onto his bed; it was only when he got up to find something to eat that he found all of his clothes from last night strewn about the kitchen. He noticed that all of his belongings on his table were all on the ground. He found a pair of red underwear and suddenly remembered his dalliance as he went to put his tea on.

He was having another argument with Caroline later that afternoon on his way to another press conference. They'd made him and Ruth share a car and he hadn't complained as soon as he'd sat down and checked his emails.

The press team wanted it to look like they actually might not want to kill each other every five seconds and Klaus just grit his teeth and nodded after Katherine sent him a look that would have sent Satan cowering in a corner.

"Are you actually smiling?" Ruth asked from beside him and he didn't even look up to acknowledge her as Caroline's responding email came through his phone.

They were arguing about tea vs coffee, it came up as much in serious conversation as the war in the Middle East.

_Look there are 3 kinds of reasons people drink tea a) your weird and you think water draining the life out of leaves would be swell to drink b) you're a hippie who, god let's hope has probably put some fun herbs in there or c) you're a pretentious old lady drinking out of a thousand dollar tea cup._

"Seriously your phone keeps going off every two seconds its super annoying,"

Klaus ignored Ruth entirely in favour of proving to Caroline that tea was by far the most superior beverage.

**What about British people? **

He replied in record time and smirked knowing it would throw Caroline through a loop. He enjoyed nothing more than to have her splutter words at him in their disputes. He always wanted to see it person. He wondered if he could make her blush, if she would stutter in indignation at his digs, he wondered what she looked like when she was angry.

He shook his head and pushed the thought away.

_You are sooo not British_

Was her immediate reply and he chose to leave her hanging like she had the other day, after he'd been so nice and actually LISTENED to her girl drama.

_Nick? _

He smirked at his phone looking out the window instead to starve his itch to reply sooner; they were almost at the hotel.

_Bastard_

There was another full minute of silence before his phone beeped.

_Fine go choke on a tea leaf you hippie_

He actually spit out a laugh at that one which caused Ruth, who was tired of being ignored to lean over to see his phone.

"Who is Carebear?" Ruth asked reading Caroline's emails screen name with an eyebrow raised, devilish amusement plaguing her eyes. Klaus snatched his phone back and realised his mistake in being too defensive too late.

She was grinning.

"My My Klaus does someone have a girlfriend?"

He'd grit his teeth. Ruth Rayne had the biggest mouth in Hollywood. She was the Taylor swift of acting except she didn't have to sing about it to slander you. He knew after their movie was released that she'd stop pretending they were buddies with the press and tell everyone and anyone what a giant asshole he was. She wasn't wrong but she could at least shut up about it. Thank god he'd never slept with her…

Every time he heard her voice it felt like she was popping blood vessels in his brain.

Besides, Caroline was his secret. She was his alone in his prefect little universe and he wasn't going to let she devil Ruth Rayne ruin that so no he wasn't going to explain why he was constantly emailing someone called Care bear.

Klaus was suddenly thankful that her email was its horrendous title and not her name. It was actually a conversation starter from when they had first met. He had asked her if she was old enough to be on a college chat room and she'd exploded at him.

It was funny to see how far their friendship had come.

They got out of the car as it stopped and were swarmed by media and fans coming for the press interview. It was only when he stood up that Klaus realised he'd never answered Ruth.

He slid his arm around her for show as they made their way into the hotel, whilst he smiled all the while at the fans thinking of how he was going to defend his next argument to a college girl about the wonders of tea.

"Anyone special right know Klaus? There are rumours about you and model Eliza Friend after you were seen leaving together last night at LA's 'Frenzy.'"

He smiled charmingly, "Me and Liza are just good friends. So no, still waiting for the one I guess," He smirked, his Cheshire cat smile, his dimples in full show and everyone swooned in an awe motion at his words.

He spared a glance at Katherine who rolled her eyes and gave him an okay with her fingers. Woman was hard to please but it put him mostly in the clear. This meant no scandal for a while; there'd be more nit-picking and instruction for the rest of this tour from her though he just knew it.

He barely realised Ruth had spoken up beside him until everyone's eyes were on him like he'd just been set on fire.

"Sorry?" He asked and her knowing grin extended, it made his stomach drop.

"I said are you sure there's no one else you CARE about right now?" she prompted raising her eyebrows at him in their close proximity he saw the gleam in her eyes that told him she was enjoying this.

Klaus was barely deterred, the actor in him jumping to the surface of his skin even though he wanted to rip of the brunette girl's head with his bare hands.

"Oh love you know I care about you to," Klaus sent her a wink and she forced her eyes to roll in a playful way even though she was fuming.

So then they'd be talking about them and therefore the movie. Who said Klaus couldn't handle his press? He was fucking amazing at his job.

Klaus: 1 Ruth: 0

Coffee: 0 Tea: British

God Caroline made him crazy.

"What the bloody hell was that?" Katherine demanded waving her arms around like the crazy woman she was.

What on earth did his brother see in this woman?

Katherine was a pushy nobody from some small town in Virginia. She'd met Elijah when she'd moved to the city and hit it off. Klaus was just starting his transition from British to American film and Elijah had suggested his girlfriend become his publicist.

He still thought it was a bad idea all these years later. Mostly about the yelling though, Katherine was great at her job. Klaus wouldn't get anywhere without her. He'd had a lot of self-inflicted bad press but it hadn't failed him yet. Besides he made up for it with his apologetic smile and dimples, Katherine had once told him he oozed charm from his skin when he was in a jam.

"But I dare you to ask me if there is one young adult who hasn't heard of Klaus Mikalson," Katherine had yelled at his manager once. She'd been right though, whether you knew him for his scandals or his Oscar nomination.

You DID know him.

"What was what?" he asked innocently as they shuffled through the halls in the building his body guards leading the way.

"You know damn well, you can't STAND Ruth. I practically had to shove you in that car not two hours ago. Since when do you voluntarily play nicey nice?" she had her eyebrow's raised in that annoying way she does that makes Klaus feel like a child, when he knows he's older than her.

He sighed exasperatedly, "She was just trying to get under my skin after being nosey in the car. You know she craves attention." Klaus waved it off like it was obvious.

"What do you MEAN nosey?" Katherine said suspiciously.

"She read an email of mine," Klaus shrugged ambiguously donning his glasses as they approached outside.

Katherine had her face scrunched up in thought as they made their way through a throng of fans to another car. Thankfully separate this time, well except for Katherine, life wasn't perfect after all.

Recognition flashed across her face before it changed to confusion, "she saw you text a GIRL?" Katherine asked incredulously and it made Klaus chuckle.

"I'm not gender exclusive with who I communicate with," he muttered rolling his eyes preparing for her dramatics.

Bloody Gilbert.

Then in what could probably be explained by a long waiting list of Karmic retribution his phone buzzed.

He couldn't help but want to check it, by the tone he knew it was an email and the only person he emailed was Caroline. He didn't know why they didn't just give in and trade mobile numbers but it hadn't really affected their communication.

Except he'd never heard her voice.

A part of him ached to, to know and see everything about her. If anything so he could be disappointed and move on with his life. The terrifying limbo of caring too much about this girl that essentially didn't exist was slowly eating at him when he had time to think about it. Mostly he tried not to. He was busy after all.

_You know that by prolonging your answer you've only given me more time to fuel my ammunition for the coffee fire. If you curious to know how one starts a coffee fire you begin by first drinking coffee._

He snorted at the message as his thumbs swiped across the screen. He could vaguely hear Katherine yammering on about his future plans and his house arrest for tonight after his stunt with the model.

**And how much coffee have you consumed exactly since we last spoke?**

_He lives, I was worried for a moment and like only two…_

**I'm sure you were. Two? It's only been hardly more than that in hours. Honestly love I think you've got a serious problem. **

_EXCUSE ME. I have no such thing. If you must know I have a killer test coming up and I forgot I had to learn three pages of Shakespeare for tomorrow. I'm doomed._

Klaus smiled at her dramatics before he replied with interest. He loved Shakespeare; he'd done numerous productions in theatre school. He sometimes missed the stage; Klaus thought that in a couple of years he'd take a break from movies and try to do a couple of plays, maybe even back in England.

**Which one?**

_Which what? _Was her immediate reply and his lips twitched to form a smile.

**Which play** he clarified.

_Oh, heh um Hamlet. I can't stand it. It's all rah this kill that ghost that, something about damn spots. Honestly it's exhausting. I mean I can remember it fine once I've read it but I have to look up every other word and I don't speak old timey… so it's hard to make it sound right._

Caroline spoke a little of her classes. Klaus had managed to gather that she studied drama. Caroline seemed to like it but was unsure of where to go with it. Klaus often found himself torn with wanting to give her constructive advice about it, seeing as he was in a real position to.

He happened to know a lot about the real life applications of studying drama in higher education.

But she was young, she'd figure it out. She'd find her calling as a journalist or something; she was opinionated enough and hungered to see the world. Klaus often told her about other countries. It was one of his favourite past times with Caroline. He told her what was good, what less obvious places she should see and she loved it. She once told him she'd written it all down for when she went.

**Shakespeare's fun once you give it a chance. **

He'd replied impulsively and narrowed his eyes at her reply. Damn.

_Someone was a drama nerd in high school! Ah fine, you can bet your cotton mittens that you'll be hearing all my whining when I'm humiliated tomorrow. _

He chuckled realising he hadn't really revealed anything incriminating about his profession and then at her comment.

**I don't think that's a real expression love**

_Sure it is I just said it, didn't I?_

"But I suppose you'll just always be a slutty man slut, Klaus? What are you doing? Have you listened to a word I've just said? Who in god's name are you texting?"

Klaus looked up when Katherine's questions grew more incessant.

"Don't worry I don't feel like going out tonight. Despite what you think my sole purpose in life is not to make yours harder," Klaus said rolling his eyes at her and she looked at him suspiciously before scoffing.

"Elijah thinks you're going to make me go grey. As if I'd ever let such a thing happen" She folded her arms across her perfectly tailored jacket.

"No, heaven forbid." He replied sarcastically.

**AN/ Thanks to everyone who reviewed the first chapter! I'll try and update as regularly as I can. So yay we met Klaus. Like? Hate? Leave a review and let me know **** there will be some actual meeting action of some kind in the next chapter. **


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: So firstly thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed/favourite/followed this story! The response had been super surprising and awesome, I'm glad you guys like the Klaroline banter. I was gonna wait a few more days but then I thought screw it. Here's the next chapter**** also sorry for mistakes I am an unreliable self-edit. **

Klaus didn't know why he was nervous. They'd earned millions of dollars at the box office opening weekend. Every review had been positive. He KNEW it was good.

But now he had to face his harshest critic.

When Caroline had mentioned she was seeing a movie on the weekend with Stefan as a reward for him passing his sociology test he was only being polite when he asked which one.

_We're seeing that guys one. All I know is that stuff is meant to blow up and Stefan wants to see it because he has a crush on that Ruth Rayne chick. I was promised needless shirtless-ness so I'm sure it'll be okay._

Yes he could definitely a test to that; it was for the women who had been dragged by their boyfriends. Not that he was going to divulge to Caroline how cold it had been when he'd taken off his clothes in snow weather. He tried not to think about how unfair it was that Caroline had seen him shirtless and wasn't going to ever return the unknowing favour.

He loved Caroline's honesty. She had unwittingly predicted his Oscar nomination once she'd seen _Dirt_. It was strange to think that Caroline in an essence actually knew about him. He wasn't THAT much of an egotistical jackass to ask about himself as a celebrity to her.

It was always organic so he told himself it was okay.

But he couldn't help it if he wanted an opinion on his movie that didn't come from someone who wasn't trying to kiss his ass or was intentionally tearing him down like an entitled movie critic.

Besides Caroline was one of the most honest people he knew, especially to him. He wasn't sure if it was the internet barrier or if she was really like that but he didn't mind. It was refreshing and somewhat grounding since he tended to let it all get away sometimes.

Lyrics.

She hadn't written a song since she was a pre-teen and even then she was pretty sure it was about her favourite hairbrush and flowers.

Caroline had always loved music. She'd been playing the guitar since she was twelve, after she had moved back in with her mother. It had been her grandfathers. It was a beautifully worn court and Caroline had always loved it.

She was trying to work on her original solo performance for her drama class. It was a big chunk of her grade and so far Caroline had come up empty. But when she'd sat down that afternoon in her dorm in another futile attempt to get started she'd only come up with lyrics. Now she was absentmindedly strumming the guitar for a melody to fit.

Two weeks after Caroline turned twelve her life had become this big complicated mess and she'd found comfort in its strings. Singing was easier than talking, she'd once tried to explain this to the therapist they'd made her see. They'd encouraged this immensely telling her mother that it was a kind of therapy all on its own. Caroline was happy that it played a part in her shrinking visits to their office. No pun intended.

Realising you were broken and that no one would ever really treat you like you weren't was hard. The music had symbolised the healing, her crutch.

She'd ditched it all together in a painful purge when she had started high school. She tried so hard to show everyone she was okay. She joined every club, her grades were impeccable, sure she made a few fumbles like in her love life but everyone assumed she was okay. They started to look away.

Caroline never thought that when she finally had the courage to look at her guitar again she would feel joy. It was true happiness, purpose.

Music wasn't just her past. It could be in her future, if she let it.

She played a bluesy number and riffed up and down the neck of the guitar. She hit the base like her Grandfather had shown her once. She remembered the awe she felt when he'd shown her that.

"You have to keep an open mind Caroline, use the whole guitar, and explore every possibility."

He'd spent a lot of time with Caroline after everything when her mother was trying to come to grips with it herself. All Caroline understood at the time was that her mother was trying to spend more time with her but she seemed to be further away from Caroline then she used to be.

It was strange considering they'd never really actually lived together before.

She wouldn't look Caroline in the eye and would turn away her eyes felt almost dead to Caroline. She'd never resented her mother for 'letting it happen' as someone had once put it. No, Caroline resented that even after all this time her mother's badge still held precedence over her.

Caroline would never really come first for anyone, she'd accepted that when her mother left her all those years ago. There was no point in entertaining what if's so Caroline wouldn't.

When her grandfather passed away right before freshman year she'd put her guitar away. She'd cut her hair and practiced the smile she would show the world when they were looking.

It had been working so far. The only time's she deviated from the plan was when she met Stefan and started dating his older brother. Suffice to say the friendship lasted longer than the relationship. Caroline still found it annoying that Stefan could worm his way so easily into her life and figure her out. But he was her best friend and she could never fully regret her relationship with Damon because of him.

Damon had reduced her to her emotional dregs of childhood again. In the end it had only made Caroline realise that her problems were still there, the wrapping paper was different but they were still there.

It forced her to deal with it and after she'd finally broken it off with him.

She saw a psychologist again.

Everything was coming together for real this time. Slowly but surely, and then she'd met Nick.

She privately thought of him as her safety net. He knew the real parts of her that she was afraid to let others know. She was completely herself for the first time in a long time and he challenged her constantly about everything.

She couldn't imagine having done a lot of things over the past few years if he hadn't prompted her to try most of them. He gave her hope of the bigger world, that SHE was bigger than a small town and a small town life.

And he made her believe that she was.

That she was somebody.

The lyrics she'd written summated everything that she wanted them to be but Caroline wasn't sure if it would work if she spoke them. It seemed too personal, to raw to say on a stage in front of peers and her teacher.

She thought about asking Nick and then revoked the idea. He didn't know anything about this and she liked it that way. She didn't know what she'd do if she'd lost her safety net.

**So how did your terrifying experience with Shakespeare go? Was it awful? Did you make children cry and your peers wince?**

_It was worse; I don't want to talk about it._

**I was only joking love, I'm sure it wasn't that bad.**

He replied quickly that Saturday afternoon and Caroline smiled and then groaned remembering the class two days prior.

_No it's not that, were doing the whole play now as the end of semester class piece. We got cast from our performances and I'm Lady Macbeth._

**I can't really find the awful part of that sweetheart; you're going to have to let me in on your crazy Caroline**

_It took me forever to get that monologue to sound okay I don't have time to do that for a whole play! Couldn't I have just been one of those witches? I mean I've seen hocus pocus a billion times; I could have totally winged that!_

She could hear his eyes rolling from wherever it was in the world he lived. Caroline was positive it was America though; they had met on an American colleges chat room. Although he did just tell her he was British…Sort of, maybe? God he was infuriating.

**You're ridiculous, you realise that don't you? Never the less I'm proud of your achievement. If you're not going to celebrate you getting a lead role in Macbeth than I will**

_Okay, I'm a little happy. It puts less pressure on the solo piece I'm still trying to rack my brains around. Thank god mid semester break is coming up. Looks like I'll only have the first week though this Macbeth thing is going to kill me. _

**I'm sure you of all people have a plan Caroline **

She smiled at the response, he'd always told her that her detail over the most mundane of activities was endearing. Especially when she'd spent a whole week planning Elena's birthday complaining that the whole thing was going to be ruined when she was delivered the wrong coloured balloons.

_Damn straight I do, fake it to you make it!_

**When have you ever done that? **She rolled her eyes at his response as she put her guitar back down. Maybe one day she'd tell him the whole story, because she wanted to.

It made her smile. Everything about their odd relationship was built on their own terms; maybe that's why it worked so well.

_Shut up_ was her witty reply that ended the conversation.

"I thought I was taking a break? I just released a movie and I have another due to film in two months. People are going to start to hate my pretty face." Klaus smirked lazily at Katherine from his slouched position on his brother's couch.

"Yes with the rumours alone I think we both need a break from Hollywood drama." Katherine said rubbing her temples before she picked up one of those gossip magazines she got to keep tabs on the a-listers.

Klaus snorted, "Right I'm in a relationship with Ruth," he pulled a face. "But the good news is that I'm getting some Russian model on the side since the press conference. Although I DID sleep with her, it's just out of context." He finished with a lazy hand wave of dismissal.

"Don't forget the paparazzi you punched last month. We need to get you some good press stat." Katherine said sternly even though she didn't look like she particularly cared.

"So you of course mean NO press right? Honestly you're a terrible publicist, you're lucky you're marrying my brother. Something to fall back on," he rolled his eyes sarcastically and she pursed her lips forcing herself not to rise to the 'Klaus bait' as she called it. Also known as when Klaus was an ass to see if he could get a rise out of you when he was bored.

"Well what I've been doing has been working, but you're getting older Klaus. The whole entitled yet charming thing you've got going is only going to last so long. Why don't you do that college thing again?" She asked more seriously as she gauged his reaction.

His eyebrows furrowed in thought ignoring her jab at him mostly for the truth that lied in it. "I do like sorority girls," he contemplated.

"Exactly! And you love to tell college kids their making bad trees," Katherine smirked when his eyes narrowed bracing herself for his lecture on the importance of learning and that's how he became a great actor, they didn't stand around making trees blah blah blah he'd basically talk himself into it thinking it was his idea all along, which was exactly why Katherine had said it in the first place.

"Alright, set something up with NYU since your benching me." He said finally and she looked up from the magazine not having listened to the last ten minutes of conversation. She put the magazine down.

"Nah uh, I'm not letting you do anything unsupervised at the moment," she told him with finality.

"I'm not a CHILD Katherine, despite what you think I can control myself. Besides you and Elijah are doing that nauseating country town thing this weekend." Klaus said pulling a face to match.

"I've yet to see anything that says otherwise and we're going to my home town Klaus. Despite my family drama they should know the man I intend to marry. The fact that you won't be workshopping at an exclusive school will play more to the story; that you will casually let it slip in discussion of your 'absence in the news' when you start promoting the Razor's sequel. Which as you know is important. Sequels are tricky. Especially the hyped ones; you can't fuck it up because you're being an ass or dating two models that are sisters!" she snapped all in one breath at him. He blinked taking in her words reluctantly, because frankly Katherine was scary when she wanted to be.

Especially when she had a point. It was a solid idea. It was like the more realistic version of Klaus building schools for orphaned children in Africa, but he wasn't going to say that.

"They were twins actually," Klaus corrected her more accurately smirking at the particular debacle she was referring to. It had been messy but Klaus couldn't say he hadn't enjoyed the cat fight that ensued in the fall out. His only regret had been that they'd smashed his camera phone before he'd had a chance to film it.

"Well come on now, what back water town are you dragging us to?" He asked rolling his eyes after he'd sighed at her less than impressed expression at his comment.

She smiled at his submission, "Mystic Fall's Virginia."

"What are these?" Stefan asked curiously before he started riffling through her stuff without a moment for her to object. Caroline wasn't even looking as she attempted to find her biology text book in her person sized handbag.

Stefan picked up the bits of paper in a pile on her desk, some crumpled and scribbled over. It was very un-Caroline like. He started reading some of the notes and realised what it was, well sort of.

They were amazing though.

"Care?"

"Hm?" She responded her arm elbow deep as she tried to find the book. It shouldn't be this hard, the thing was huge!

"Did you write these?" Stefan asked his eyes still glued to the pages.

"GET AWAY FROM THERE!" she demanded and Stefan dropped the paper like it had just burnt him. He held his arms up in surrender as Caroline glared straight through his shocked face.

"But there-"

"Nothing," she amended firmly and he frowned before he finished his original sentence.

"Amazing. There amazing Caroline." He told her sincerely and she felt the heat rise to her face in embarrassment.

"I didn't know you wrote-"

"I don't," she hissed walking up to where he was still trying to peer at the papers and snatching them away. She snapped them into a notebook and shut it tightly.

He rolled his eyes at her defensive nature and sighed. "Fine, but seriously Caroline you should keep not doing it," he grinned when her lips pulled up slightly at his comment before she rolled her own eyes.

"Fine just stop talking about it," she sighed before she seemed to realise something at his expectant nature.

"What are you doing here again?" she asked finally seeing that she'd left the biology book under her bed and bent down to get it. She was pretty sure she'd kicked it under there in a rage the other day studying.

He groaned and she quirked an eyebrow at him, "What?" she demanded.

"Caroline it's your mum's dinner. You know the dinner in her honour? Fifteen years as Sherriff?" Caroline still looked dazed as she took in his slightly more dressed up appearance as he rambled on.

"Bout yay high, blonde hair, wears a police uniform pretty much every time I've ever seen her-" He trails off in actual wonder, because he's not sure if he's ever seen the woman in plain clothes…

"That's tonight?" Caroline asked finally cutting off his teasing's mentally going through the days of the week. It couldn't be the weekend already could it? "I can't" Caroline said unconvincingly and Stefan's eyebrows narrowed.

"It's been tonight for four months Caroline; I was there when your mother SPECIFICALLY asked for your attendance and mine as an extension to see you actually made it. You're not going to make excuses to study OR wash your hair in a different continent, now chop chop missy I don't have all day," He started clapping picking up a pair of shoes to shove at her as she tried to protest.

"But Stefan-"

"But nothing and remember it's the grill so don't take forever or I'll know you've slid out the window," he warned before telling her he would be back in an hour.

Caroline sighed, alone as she slid onto her bed. She specifically remembered trying not to remember this occasion, turns out that line of procrastination wasn't working out. Of course her mother had asked her whilst Stefan was there. She remembered wanting to give a half assed reply she could back out of like; _we'll see, or I'll probably be swamped with school._ She could have called today and told her as much.

But no she'd INVITED Stefan and all but demanded her attendance with Caroline's lack of home visit's as her blackmail.

And her favourite son Stefan had eaten it up.

Crafty sheriff

Very crafty

Caroline only allowed herself a few more minutes of groaning before she set about finding an outfit to wear and maybe an expression she could wear that didn't scream:

"Get me out of here!"

It was awkward. Her mother was actually being stranger than usually.

As if that were possible.

Caroline tried not to let her irritation show as her mother all but ignored her after being so adamant she attend in the first place. She balled her fists as her mother darted away after a quick hello. There were cops everywhere in the grill and their presence had diminished the young crowd.

Understandably,

Everyone was here.

Caroline noted unsurprised, her mother spent far more time with these men than she had with Caroline. Everyone appeared to be having a good time, some still in their work uniforms and others in more casual attire. She noticed her mother smiling as she spoke to one of her deputies and her anger drained from her body.

It was nice to see her mother happy.

She ignored the small part of her that wished she could be the one to make her happy, even just a little bit. Caroline felt Stefan squeeze her still curled fist in reassurance and she nodded relaxing herself.

This wasn't about her tonight.

They sat down at a table near some young looking cops who Caroline didn't recognise; she didn't want the nauseating college talk she got from the men she'd known all her life again. She also liked that some other people looked uncomfortable by the group of drunken cops.

She and Stefan had struck up a conversation with two young transfers Bill and Mac.

"So I haven't seen you around the office, where have you been hiding?" Mac leered at her after a few more drinks and Caroline instinctively put her hand out to stop Stefan's retort. Bill had it covered when he hit him over the head.

She giggled, "Nah I know the Sherriff,"

"You could say were like family," She elaborated grinning at Mac and Ben sighed.

"You're the hot young daughter whose off limits aren't you?" Ben asked straight faced and she spluttered through the water she was drinking.

"I wouldn't say that," she said slightly embarrassed by his brazenness.

He chuckled, "no you wouldn't but several other senior ranking officers did though. And seeing as some are still armed I'm not taking those kinds of odds." He smiled at her and she sighed in playful rejection.

"I bet several of those men over there just lost a bet," Caroline said looking in the direction of a couple of men she'd known since she was a little girl pretending not to watch their exchange.

"Oh look there's Damon, do you mind Care?" Stefan asked gently and she nodded surprised he'd want to speak to him. Damon and Elena had only just gotten together; she doubted Stefan was suddenly okay with it.

Damon's eyes drifted to her once Stefan approached him, she watched them talking across the room at the other end of the bar. She stiffened when he smirked at her; she uneasily stood up from her seat excusing herself before she went to the other end of the bar. She had to find some actually liquor.

It seemed unfair that she was the only person who couldn't get drunk at this shindig.

Knowing her way around the Grill quite well she slipped into the bar and rummaged for some hard liquor. She peered over the bar to see her mother engaged in conversation with Damon AND Stefan.

Great. She was going to have to find something that would taste okay straight.

Her hand found a bottle of decent scotch whilst her other found some kind of tumbler.

"Can you pour me one of those sweetheart?"

Caroline looked up from her generous slosh of the alcohol to look at the man who she hadn't realised was sitting at the edge of the bar. He was wearing a beanie AND a hoodie, she couldn't see any of his face in the light, she was also pretty sure he was wearing a scarf?

It wasn't cold in here…she didn't dwell on his strange attire though, as other thoughts of the three huddled people across the room thrummed through her mind.

She'd almost poured it over the top before she realised and held her hand out to the man in question who stared at it blankly in return.

"Glass," she demanded like it was obvious.

He handed it to her despite his next words that sounded amused. "So I take it you DON'T work here."

"Are you thirsty or not?" she asked pouring it on the bar top in front of him regardless as she took a big swig of her own drink. Relishing in the burning feeling the alcohol left down her throat.

She vaguely saw his eyebrows rise at her action impressed before he held his glass up to her in thanks and downed most of it in one go like she had.

"No, she doesn't."

She spun around so fast it was a miracle she didn't spill her drink before she sighed holding her chest realising who it was.

"Matthew Donavan you scared the crap out of me," she hit him lightly on the chest and before giving him a tight hug, she hadn't seen him in ages.

"Did you think I was one of the zillion policemen here? Or maybe your mother? The Sherriff? I don't think it would look to good if you were arrested for underage drinking at a party in her honour do you?"

Caroline rolled her eyes turning away from him to get in another giant sip of her drink before he inevitable snatched it from her.

"So that's what this is," The hooded man at the bar that she realised now had quite a distinctive British accent muttered looking around the room in realisation.

"Yeah it's normally a snooze fest with the exception of minors trying to steal the alcohol." Matt replied dryly but Caroline could feel him smirking at her a hairs breath away behind her.

"Excuse me, how do you even serve alcohol then?" Caroline asked before swallowing the rest of her drink. She reached for the bottle again and Matt's hand covered hers.

"I'm not losing my job to facilitate whatever spat you're having with your mother," Matt said gesturing vaguely around with his hand and her eyes narrowed.

"Fine but Damon's here, I don't exactly like seeing him rub in how they're pals." Caroline gestured to where her mother, Stefan and Damon were talking.

Matt scrunched up his face in irritation before he squeezed her hand once gently, he then let go of her hand warily. "It's times like these when I think your nuts for never telling her." He muttered before telling her to be less obvious as he left to go clear a table.

"Maybe I should switch to vodka and pretend its water?" Caroline asked the stranger who was watching her with curious eyes.

"I don't think it'll matter much if you skull another one of those love," he gestured to the next full glass she had poured and she smiled.

"Your right!" she clinked their glasses together and he chuckled amused.

"Cheers,"

"Care? What are you doing?"

"Opps gotta go," Caroline put the bottle down in front of the man, winked and slid out from behind the bar.

He watched the enchanting blonde fly out of his vision and was filled with disappointment. If he hadn't been on strict orders from Katherine to keep a low profile he wouldn't be wearing this ridiculous get up which he was ridiculously hot in.

And not in the way everyone said he looked hot.

He and that blonde girl could have had some fun.

Deciding that the night was a bust he went to leave, hoping Katherine and Elijah were still out seeing her aunt. The most interesting thing of this escapade was going to be her cat fight family drama she'd been worrying about all week.

He caught sight of the blonde again in heated discussion with who looked to be her mother. Her clear blue eyes were angry and her blonde hair moved as she gestured to the other woman. The other woman was older and she was slightly shorter with a severely short haircut. They were off to the side and Klaus was a little relived as he shook his head.

It was a good thing he hadn't gone near that.

That woman was wearing a police uniform.

"What do you mean he's sick? How long as he had cancer? Why didn't you tell me sooner? Is that why you wanted me here?" Caroline couldn't help herself as all the questions poured out of her mouth all at once.

"Caroline calm down. Breathe honey." Liz put her hand out to steady Caroline's shoulder as Caroline composed herself. She watched her daughter shake her head before looking firmly at her, her eyes distant now and unfocussed.

"Okay."

"What do you mean okay?" Liz asked a confused eyebrow rose.

"I mean okay, thankyou for notifying me." Caroline said with a forced calmness.

"Notifying-Caroline, we need to talk about this," Liz said firmly as she searched her daughters eyes for the emotion that had just been present. It was gone now.

"Whether you want to see him or-"

"No," Caroline interjected her voice unsteady and she cursed herself for how she sounded; Wary.

Liz's eyes softened, "It's okay, there's time. Not a lot of time but there's still time if you want to change yours. I just don't want you to grow up and have regrets sweetie," Her mother told her softly and Caroline sighed before she smiled softly at her mother in turn.

"Thank you I'll think about it." Caroline lied and her mother nodded seeing it.

"Well we should probably head out soon, I have school Monday and I have a tonne of homework. Oh by the way, here's your present," Caroline fished out the perfectly wrapped box and handed it to her mother before muttering about going to find Stefan and turning swiftly away.

She hadn't completely forgotten about the day. She had bought it a couple of weeks ago. Liz Forbes opened the small box and fished out a small medallion on a chain. It was long enough to slide under her uniform and strong enough not to break. Caroline really did always think of everything.

It was a round medallion that had patterns around the outside etched into the gold with a star in the middle signifying her being sheriff.

On the back were two dates the first was Caroline's birthday and the second was the date she became sheriff.

Liz found a slip of paper in the box in Caroline's handwriting. _The day I first belonged to you and the day I had to share you. I know you have trouble believing it but I wouldn't change you for anything._

Liz felt a tear slip down her cheek and looked up to see Caroline smiling at her with worry in her eyes. She was afraid it had upset her.

She'd done the complete opposite.

**AN: Well hopefully that gave a bit of insight on Caroline's character. ALSO I just realised that I said Caroline was doing Hamlet in the last chapter but its Macbeth, mostly because that's what I did in school and it's the only one I know well and even then I hated it haha anyway just clearing that up.**


	4. Chapter 4

Caroline groaned when she felt the blankets being torn from her body.

"GO AWAY," she wailed shielding her eyes from the new light invading her eyes. She could practically hear Elena roll her eyes.

"Get up Caroline I'm in crisis!"

She didn't move until Elena had sighed and spoken again. "Don't make me friend card you!"

Caroline shot up pulling some of her hair out of her face as she peered at her friend in suspicion.

"It's THAT serious?" she inquired and Elena nodded.

"I have lunch with Katherine today and I NEED you to be there."

Caroline tried to untangle herself from her sheets. "What?" she asked sleepily before she blinked profusely that couldn't be right. "RIGHT you had that thing with Jenna! I can't believe Katherine turned up? And now you're having lunch-"

Elena paled at Caroline rehashing all of the horrifying facts one after another, "WE'RE going to lunch I am officially enacting the card!" Elena's voice became higher pitched as she dove for her bed side table and began digging around for a small piece of laminated paper.

"My god you're serious, are you okay Elena?" Caroline asked in concern as she looked at her distressed friend. They hadn't used the silly bit of paper in years.

They'd made it when they were seven, and it could only be used once a year. Elena had been hording it for years, being less adventurous as a teenager she'd told Caroline to suck it up that one time she wanted to go skinny dipping when they were drunk because she still had the card. It was a sharing thing; Caroline had regretted that rule and had tried to revoke it complaining that they were only seven. Elena had been animate you could only use it one at a time.

Caroline was floored she'd brought it with her to college. She hadn't thought about it in years, the only reason it was alive was because Caroline insisted that they laminate it. It had been very important at the time.

But as much as Caroline didn't want to have to referee a fight between the infamous Gilbert sisters she would because Caroline was going to have the friend card again. Oh and Elena also looked like she wanted to pull out her hair.

Mostly the card.

Caroline took the little pink square smiling, "you know I would have done it anyway."

Elena reached for it back but she held it against her chest, "but never the less I'll keep it," she grinned when Elena glared at her playfully, she seemed a little happier.

Caroline patted her bed with her hand and Elena raised an eyebrow, "You haven't seen Kat in what five years? Tell me ALL about it."

"Don't you have class?" Elena asked and Caroline looked panicked for a moment. She had drama, but surely it would be fine. She'd just rehearse her lines later. She had a solo rehearsal tomorrow anyway; she's sure her teacher won't flip out to much. This was important.

"Nah all good, now tell me all about it." Caroline demanded and Elena sighed but smiled gratefully at her friend. Caroline really was always there for her.

"Okay, but then you have to tell me all about your mum's party and don't lie to me because Damon told me I should talk to you. He put his serious voice on and everything."

"Of course he did," Caroline muttered bitterly. Caroline had been pushing all of last night's events into a box in the very corner of her mind labelled 'not equipped to deal with' and she wasn't. Elena had only just stopped staring at her with her worried face she didn't need it happening all over again. Stefan was enough.

"Fine, fine we'll get to me." Caroline said quickly without much truth but Elena sat down anyway eager to get off her chest the meeting with her sister.

Caroline nodded as she listened to her friend explain Katherine turning up last night at Jenna's welcome home party. It was the first time Elena was going to see her new daughter Lily, she hadn't believed Rick when he'd told her that her sister had called Jenna and planned on making an appearance.

"AND THEN she show's up with some guy saying their ENGAGED typical Katherine, making EVERYTHING about her."

Caroline was pulled out of her mute listening at that, "She's getting married?" she asked incredulously and Elena nodded rolling her eyes.

"The man was wearing a SUIT he seems so boring and polite. It's so strange; definitely not her type, he's got to have money or something…"

"I don't know Elena, it's been years. If it looks like Katherine's cleaned up and got her life together then maybe she has," Caroline began cautiously knowing she was a sore subject.

"No. She did this before remember? She does this. She'll show up and be better and then I'll start to think she is and then well you know what happened! I CAN'T trust her Caroline. Not again, it'll hurt too much."

Caroline smiled softly at her friend. "I know but you still have to give her a chance, because you're you Elena. You want to, even if you're hurt now. I'm not saying put all your eggs in her basket but just hear her out, I mean she obviously wants to reconnect if you're having lunch right?" She watched Elena process her words and take them in reluctantly before nodding.

"Fine, but you're still coming. I'm not sitting through an entire lunch with my sister without Jeremy as a buffer and her perfect looking fiancé." Elena conceded jumping off of Caroline's bed.

"Oh so he's attractive is he?" Caroline teased smiling until Elena threw a pillow at her.

"Another reason to hate my sister," She heard Elena grumble before she slammed the bathroom door to have a shower. Caroline rolled her eyes before she blindly groped for her phone on her bedside table.

It was going to be a messy lunch.

She scrolled through a couple messages Stefan had sent her and was glad Elena had forgotten to question her; hopefully she'd be wrapped up in Katherine until at least tonight. It gave Caroline more time to not think about it.

God she was pathetic.

She opened an email from Nick that read: **Good morning sweetheart**

It made her smile way more than it should have as she replied, her eyebrow rose at the fact he'd only sent it an hour ago at nine. Normally he was messaging her way earlier because of his work. Whatever that was…

_Good morning, your message was a bit late for you and by late I mean not at the crack of dawn._

She smirked when he replied only moments later.

**And you're replying before noon on a Monday, decided not to blow off class then love?**

_Have you MEMORISED my schedule? _

**Don't do that, I've known you for years now. I'm allowed to make observations. **

Caroline giggled she could imagine him rolling his eyes. It was odd to not know what Nick looked like but she could imagine his expressions by the way he wrote, what he meant, when he was being sarcastic. She shook her head and replied.

_Yes but then you make me look bad considering I don't even know what you do for a living... And I did blow off class. But NO JUDGMENT I had a friend crisis. _

**Wouldn't dream of it. That was also a poor effort love, still not telling.**

_I KNOW. BELIEVE ME._ Caroline messaged back irritated blowing a strand of hair out of face. He was insufferably stubborn. What was he afraid of? Maybe he was some kind of pimp…or a terrorist.

**Is your friend alright now?**

She smiled at him having asked, he was considerate like that.

_She will be. I have to get ready for lunch though, she friend carded me._

**Alright love, have fun. You're going to explain the latter to me later though**

Caroline threw her phone on her bed and stood up just in time for Elena to tell her to take a shower and get ready.

They were meeting in the dead zone.

"But why Elena? It's so far away and covered in tree leaves and-"

"Katherine wanted a less populated area no doubt so she could kill me quietly." she sighed when Caroline threw her a look, "I don't know she said that her fiancé's brother had decided to tag along who's also her client. She's a publicist by the way, I know I think it's made up to," Elena scoffed at her own comment barely taking a breath before she continued, "anyway she says we'll want privacy."

"I still think she might kill me," Elena said nodding her head in thought.

"Alright Elena I will keep an eye out for twig snapping noises and clear plastic sheeting." Caroline said blatantly sarcastic rolling her eyes as they walked across campus.

"Why would there be plastic?"

"Have you not seen a crime show? Killers always lay down plastic, it's a tidier murder." Caroline said matter of factly as she pulled her coat tighter around her.

"Could you imagine her doing anything tidy Caroline?" Elena asked incredulously like it was a real scenario.

She paused in thought all the same, "I don't know maybe she'll get her new clean cut guy in on it to. I'll bet HE's seen Dexter." Caroline nodded to herself as her Elena continued to bicker all the way to the

'Dead Zone.'

Appropriately named and was located on the west side of campus. It backed onto a forest, but not the cool kind they had in mystic falls where you could go off and make out in. It was dangerous looking and fenced off with poorly maintained wire. There were a few picnic tables and a dozen trees that were losing their leaves in the autumn season. It had a neglected beauty about it. Caroline might even consider studying here if it wasn't so bloody far away from everything.

Seriously she was going to have a heart attack if they walked any further.

"Well I hope she's not planning to kill you, if so you kind of picked a good place for it. Don't worry I will out run her and avenge you… You know from a distance… with like the police or something."

"Gee thanks Caroline," Elena said sarcastically but they were interrupted by a familiar voice Caroline didn't think she'd ever forget. It wasn't in Katherine's nature to NOT make an entrance.

"I don't leave witnesses Caroline you'd be unfortunate collateral damage."

Caroline spun around to see Katherine and a tall gentleman who she assumed was the fiancé. She smiled when the older girl moved to hug her, she responded enthusiastically. Despite everything Caroline had missed the bitchy girl. She'd been like an older sister to Caroline practically her whole life and she was happy to see her doing well.

"Kat," Caroline said happily and Katherine looked relieved at the welcome she received smiling at her in return. She probably thought she'd be as cold as Elena last night.

"Well look at you Caroline you turned into a smoking hot college girl while I was gone." She joked and Caroline rolled her eyes.

"Elena," Katherine said almost unsurely and it sounded so odd to Caroline's ears. Katherine Gilbert wasn't unsure of anything.

"Katherine," Elena said frostily and Caroline smiled forcibly between the two.

God she really was designated buffer wasn't she?

"Caroline this is my fiancé Elijah, this is Elena's best friend Caroline, practically an adopted Gilbert." She said jokingly and Caroline shook the polite man's hand.

Elena was right he was hot.

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance Caroline."

Caroline cracked a smile, "Elena was right you are super polite." She ignored Elena when she hit her arm.

To her surprise and apparently not just her own he laughed, it lightened the mood somewhat even with the sisters glaring daggers at each other over them.

"Don't worry Elijah I've had many years of practice being their buffer, I'll show you the ropes." Caroline mock whispered to him and he replied similarly to her.

"I shall take notes," he seemed rather serious about it to which made Caroline chuckle.

"You told me you were bringing food," Elena told Katherine snippily and Katherine rolled her eyes before picking a picnic table for them to sit at out of random.

"I am-well Klaus is. We actually might starve but then I have certain pull over him at the moment, he should be here soon."

Caroline sat next to Elena across from the couple; Elena was busy trying to remove some of the fallen leaves ignoring Katherine.

"Klaus? So he's your client and your brother is that right?" Caroline asked pointing at each of them in turn when it was clear Elena was going to spend the next ten minutes sulking. At least until she had food, it was normally Caroline's play but it looked like she was going to earn her friend card after all.

"Yeah I moved to LA after travelling a while after rehab and that's when I met Elijah." Katherine squeezed the man's hand and he smiled at her encouragingly and Caroline smiled at the scene. They looked genuinely in love and he clearly knew about her past by the unflinching way Katherine mentioned rehab.

"I knew I wanted to be a publicist. I mean I'm good at ordering people around and yelling at other people." Caroline laughed at her all too true joke. Katherine was ruthless; it seemed like a good fit.

"Anyway, Elijah's brother was an upcoming actor from the UK he moved in with Elijah and he became my first client, I mostly manage him because he's a handful. Anyway Klaus is quite the successful actor as you two probably know." Katherine smirked when Elena's head shot up.

"You mean Klaus as in Klaus Mikalson? Your last name is Mikalson?" Elena questioned Elijah who nodded amused by the reaction. Caroline tried to absorb the new information as well. That was so cool!

"And to think Elena thought you were making up your profession." Caroline said earning a kick to her shin from Elena herself.

"OW," she complained rubbing her jean clad leg. "I'm claiming damages if I find dirt on those, or you know a bruise the size of Egypt!"

"Caroline that didn't make sense," Elena said still trying to remain unimpressed by her sister's success. It was obviously grating on the other girl's thin patience. Caroline was honestly just surprised no one had lunged across the table yet.

Oh well, they still had time. The food wasn't even here yet.

"So when does Mr Snuffleupagus arrive?" Elena asked jeering Katherine.

"So that must be exciting, do you get to go to a lot of parties and stuff?" Caroline asked and Elena scoffed. God she wasn't making this easy was she?

"Yeah sometimes, Klaus gets into all his trouble when I'm off duty though. He just likes to make sure I have something to do I guess," Katherine shared a knowing smile with Elijah presumably about Klaus.

That was so weird. She knew someone who worked for a celebrity. She was going to meet one. She wondered if celebrities were really jerks in real life, she wanted to ask Katherine but decided against it. I mean his brother was sitting right there.

"Yeah he gets a lot of bad press," Elena said smiling clearly not having the same worries of decorum as Caroline. She emphasised the word press and Katherine rolled her eyes apparently fed up with Elena's comments.

"I'm a GREAT publicist! Why do you think he's so famous now!?" Katherine shouted in her defence.

"I was hoping it had something to do with my acting ability. But I have noticed recently you spend a lot of time defending your job."

Caroline watched in silent awe as a man she'd seen several times on a movie screen and on the covers of magazines walk up behind Katherine balancing two bags of take out in his arms.

"You better not be empty handed Mikalson!" Katherine snapped irritably not turning around. It was quickly replaced with a scary glint in her eye which Caroline was more accustomed to rather than the happy facade she'd been displaying as Elena's mouth hung slightly open.

"Geez woman I brought your greasy food. Plus two salads for me and Elijah, I don't look like this by accident you know and I just presume Elijah's always been a health nut." He shrugged practically chucking the bags in the middle of the table.

His eyes scanned the unfamiliar faces and he paused on Caroline's. She looked away embarrassed when he smirked widely at her before haphazardly throwing himself in the space next to Caroline. It surprised her further and she moved over a little to make room for him.

But apparently he seemed rather intent on making her feel uncomfortable by spreading out some more.

Caroline heard Elena softly comment on where their Chinese food came from and her and Katherine began an almost civil sounding conversation about Katherine driving out at midnight one night with Elena to get this Chinese after Elena had finished her first all-nighter in high school.

Caroline smiled.

"Is anyone going to introduce me?" Klaus asked annoyed demanding the attention of the table and Katherine rolled her eyes and Caroline could have glared at the celebrity for ruining the first sibling moment the gilbert sisters had shared in presumable years.

Caroline was surprised when Elijah spoke apparently sharing the same annoyance as Caroline who had been watching the pair also.

"Klaus this is Elena, Katherine's younger sister and her friend-"

"Caroline," Klaus finished for Elijah and everyone at the table snapped their heads to his attention. Caroline's included.

Mortified of course.

She was pretty sure she would remember if she'd met Klaus Mikalson, if not only for the bragging rights.

He grinned at the response stretching easily as he relished in the attention, "It's alright love I'm not offended you don't remember; granted it's normally the other way around for me." He said casually smirking at her as he grabbed the bag with his and Elijah's salads in it.

Well that sounded conceited.

"Caroline?" Elena questioned incredulously as Caroline tried to rack her brains. She'd remember that smirking face wouldn't she? Even if only for wanting to punch it right about now…

He made it sound suggestive the way he was ogling her. Katherine was looking at her with expectant amusement when Klaus leaned closer to Caroline despite her now leaning into Elena's side to create more space between them. Her sole attention now focused on trying not to turn into the shade of a tomato.

"You really don't hold your liquor well do you love?" he mock whispered close to her ear. She almost jumped as his breath hit her ear tickling a few wayward strands of hair against her face.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Caroline said shakily although his smooth British voice seemed to be coming back to her.

"It was only last night; to be honest I'm starting to feel hurt love. Even if I was wearing the disguise she made me wear." Klaus gestured to Katherine who was still watching intently with amusement.

Caroline groaned covering her hands with her face and she hoped it was internal but his grin proved it wasn't. "YOU'RE the guy from the bar? I just thought you were going to mug someone later..." Caroline said remembering how many layers he wore and how she couldn't really make out his face with the scarf and hood and it being rather dark... and she was distracted and then she was kind of tipsy very quickly.

He leaned back placing his hands behind his head obviously amused by the thoroughly embarrassed girl.

"Well we know that one works," Klaus said offhandedly to Katherine.

Caroline scoffed finding her voice again, "I just chose to ignore the weird guy who looked like an eskimo! I had other things going on."

"I know I remember reaping those benefits." Klaus told her with a knowing smirk. By the faces of everyone else present their minds had clearly gone to another place but before anyone could question it Caroline blurted out what he meant slamming her hands down on the picnic table mortified.

"I went behind the bar at the grill. I POURED him a drink. Stop making it sound like we had dodgy eskimo sex!" Caroline turned half way through her explanation to the table to hiss at him glaring and he chuckled lowly.

"I didn't say anything about sex; would I have to be an eskimo? or-"

"Would you just stop?!" Caroline all but shouted at him her face heating up to what she presumed was now tomato red territory. He complied for now pressing his lips together tightly; the mirth hadn't left his face as he made a mock gesture of sealing his lips with a finger. Caroline had to shake her head to stop herself from staring at his lips; they were certainly something else up close and not even a foot away. He was definitely as or even more attractive in real life.

"Anyway Matt caught me and gave me an earful. Probably for an audiences benefit, I swear managerial power must be going to his head." Caroline told Elena deciding to ignore Klaus completely rolling her eyes.

"Imagine him NOT wanting to get fired," Katherine said sarcastically still amused by the scene with Klaus. Maybe it hadn't been to awful that he'd crashed their lunch. This whole Elena thing was obviously going to take a few more goes to get to civil anyway.

"Wait, you drank at your mum's anniversary POLICE party?" Elena asked interjecting making Caroline gape like a fish as Elena pushed her further into the swinging axe of doom that was being the centre of attention.

"I wasn't having a great time," she wasn't going to even MENTION Damon, especially to Elena. "Can't we get back to you guys? Remember when this lunch was about you two passive aggressively arguing? Yeah that was fun." Caroline mumbled opening up her Chinese and taking a large bite of her sticky chicken to silence herself.

"Nothing to worry about sweetheart I found you quite endearing last night."

He stared at her with his to attractive face smirking at her like she was the most amusing thing he'd flicked to on television.

Caroline wanted to die feeling herself heat up again. She remembered being rather brazen with who she thought was a complete stranger last night, having him right in front of her now, being who he was made her want to dig herself into a hole. In fact she had many places she could be right now.

_All far away from here_.

Caroline got about half way off her bench space when Elena's arm shot out to sit her back down, her grip vice on her arm.

"Best friend card. Sit back down." Elena grit out to her with her eyebrows rose expectantly.

_She'd totally been punk'd this morning. _

Caroline fished it out of her pocket and slammed the pink slip of paper in front of Elena on the top of the table.

_Clearly lulled into a false sense of security_

"You can have it, I want to leave." Caroline said flatly.

Elena ignored her completely; she wasn't doing this without Caroline. Besides she hadn't taken her side ONCE since Katherine showed up. She could suck it up for another half an hour, even if Elena was dying to talk to her about how she'd met Klaus.

"Sorry all card transactions are non-refundable. Your rules not mine."

_Bloody Gilbert_

Caroline opened her mouth ready to retort when Klaus' amused voice cut through her angry train of thought.

"Come on love don't leave on my account,"

Elena and Katherine shared a knowing smile knowing that would sit Caroline down faster than anything. She did anything and everything to prove to someone she could. There was no way she was letting him believe he'd scared her off.

She scoffed in response and sat down anyway.

"What exactly is that Caroline?" Elijah asked speaking for the first time since the food had arrived. He gestured to the pink paper that Katherine had snatched up.

"I can't believe you two still have this." Katherine rolled it over in her hands with displeasure before she handed it to Elijah even Klaus looked like he was discreetly trying to get a peak. Even if he looked like he no longer cared about the situation as he ate his salad, occasionally shooting Caroline looks.

He was finding a large amount of pleasure in seeing her blush.

It was for lack of a better word, adorable.

Elijah looked over the piece of pink lament with a smile. It read '_the best friend card' _in painfully neat writing that was accompanied by wobbly drawn flowers and hearts and stated the rules along the back.

"So this is essentially a pass that allows you to force the other to do something?" Elijah asked for clarification after reading it and they nodded.

"Yep, only twice a year and you can only do it AFTER the last person. Elena's been hoarding it like a pack rat for years."

Caroline explained.

"I'm touched," Katherine spat out bitterly at the implication and Caroline rolled her eyes.

"Katherine's never liked it," Caroline added grinning when Elijah handed it back to her, she put it in her jacket pocket for safe keeping.

"Because you idiot's both broke an arm when you made Elena jump off the roof with you when you were ten." Katherine retorted and Klaus chuckled.

"I hope that's a fun story," He said grinning at her again; Caroline wondered if it was his default expression.

"Yeah we added new rules after that," Elena said laughing for the first time as she recanted how Caroline had decided they would 'Mary Poppins'' off the roof.

"We had umbrellas and everything, Caroline was convinced we were going to float down. We landed in a mostly non prickly bush. Even then she was pretty sure we just did it wrong." Elena added rolling her eyes. She thought she saw genuine sadness in Caroline's eyes before she let out a put upon sigh.

"What is this pick on Caroline day? And I told you it was because we didn't have the umbrella with the bird head on the end- you know what never mind." Caroline said cutting herself off at the amused looks from everyone at the table. She grumpily relinquished all of the conversation to munch on some cashew chicken of Elena's while Elijah asked Elena questions about school. They WE'RE meant to be having this lunch for them to catch up and for Elena to get to know Elijah better.

Elena was actually a lot less wound up now and was even smiling as she talked with Elijah even at Katherine when she chucked in a few comments, mostly non mean spirited ones.

"So Klaus what are you doing here with my sister?" Elena asked and the celebrity in question looked up from his phone to answer her.

"Oh I'm on house arrest. After some bad PR I'm helping out with the drama's production of Macbeth here at Whitmore, lending my expertise. Hopefully it's not butchered." He crossed his fingers joking and Caroline wanted to beat her head against the table.

He noticed her changed expression; she looked almost as mortified as when he misconstrued their meeting to the table. He quirked an eyebrow, "what now love?" he asked amused by her obvious irritation of him. It looked like he'd unwittingly wound her up again, he'd be lying if he said he wasn't enjoying every blush inducing minute of it.

He'd been subtly brushing up against her for the remainder of the lunch, pretending not to even look at her just to see her shoot withering glares at him. She was awfully refreshing for a college girl; they were normally all over him.

Not that he minded; it had been a while since Klaus had a good challenge.

He paused his musing's when Elena snorted out in full blown laughter, "Well now we know what YOU missed in drama this morning."

"You're a drama student?" Klaus asked grinning when Caroline pulled her mouth into a near perfect horizontal line.

"She's Lady Macbeth; looks like you two will be seeing a lot more of each other." Elena said smiling brightly, unaware or choosing to ignore Caroline's lack of enthusiasm. Just because she was feeling bitter Caroline chose to believe it was the latter.

Klaus seemed to space out, his eyebrows pulled together into a serious expression. He looked down at his phone in his hand and then back up at Caroline in scrutiny. He gulped visibly before he cleared his throat.

"I guess so, tomorrow actually." He looked like he was debating something when he suddenly stood up. "I've actually got to go, I'll see you later. Nice to meet both of you girls." He pulled out his award winning smile despite the jumble his head had suddenly become.

_It was just a lot of coincidences lined up in a row._

_You're just making her YOUR Caroline because you want to._

If he was being honest with himself and he rarely ever was endless he was very very drunk. He'd been subconsciously trying to get into this girls pants since he'd heard her name.

_Caroline._

And if that's the case it's a self-sabotaging thought, because this Caroline looked like she could barely stand him.

Klaus' unfortunate naggings didn't go away. He thought about leaving it alone but it seemed like to many coincidences.

He settled on messaging Caroline, probably to many times to be healthy. He waited impatiently for a reply going over the similarities in his mind over and over again on a loop.

Caroline had been complaining about being in her Shakespeare play the entire week, about being Lady Macbeth.

Then of course the name was the same.

Caroline.

He was pretty sure Caroline had mentioned her friend ELENA also. Being paranoid he flicked backwards through their emails like a complete stalker and found one that said just that. Wasn't Caroline's best friend a boy? Steven or something?

He paled pouring himself a drink in his hotel room that was just outside of Whitmore, he'd opted staying away from Katherine's even smaller town and childhood home. He was just being paranoid, he'd been thinking too much recently about Caroline. About wanting to meet her, this was the universes way of scaring him out of it. Even the prospect of it being remotely true was terrifying to him.

But yet again he wanted to see her, to really know her. To see her blush like the way this Caroline today had.

To hear her laugh.

To see her smile.

God he was pathetic.

So Klaus wasn't sure what he was feeling when Caroline had emailed him all about her lunch date with her friend Elena and her sister and sister's fiancé. Then she'd explained his question from this morning about what 'friend carded' had meant.

He'd almost been relieved not to have been mentioned until an entirely new email was sent solely ranting about the obnoxious celebrity she had met.

Well fuck.

**AN/ so I think this is the longest one so far! So Klaus knows, I had been debating about how soon it would take him to figure it out but once they met for real he was always going to know. Because why wouldn't Caroline email about that? Well I hoped you guys like it, I've been super overwhelmed by how many people are reading this and following. So thanks so much**** I've nearly finished the next chapter so that should be up soon, please review and tell me what you thought**


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Okay so special treat it's my birthday today so since I'm happy I thought I'd post a chapter for you guys, the support for this has been really amazing! **** I think I was a little quick with the edit so be nice he he. Enjoy.**

Caroline strummed her guitar absently her legs dangling off the roof's edge. She found a fire escape up onto the roof of her dorm's building, it had a really nice view and no one could really hear her up here.

She finally allowed herself to think about what her mother told her.

Her father was dying.

It left her feeling divided. One minute she felt relief and the next she'd told Elena and the girl had hugged her telling her she would be there for her. Should she be devastated? A crying mess?

She couldn't remember the last time she'd cried.

When she allowed herself to feel sad another part of her told her she was stupid to think so.

That thinking that somehow made her more damaged and she wouldn't do that to herself, not now. Not when she was starting to get her life on track.

All he's ever done is hurt you.

Caroline always thought it would have been easier to deal with if her father had always been a bad man. If he'd never had a good moment.

He hadn't always been that way, she knew that.

It didn't mean he deserved to die.

She groaned aloud strumming all of the strings at once very loudly before she lied down against the cement roofing.

Caroline closed her eyes; she wished she hadn't brushed off her mother so quickly the other night. The news had just blindsided her, then there was Damon and those drinks she'd skulked.

What was her mother feeling? It was meant to be her happy night and Caroline had brushed off the information that her mother had probably been harbouring the courage to tell her. She didn't even stick around to find out WHAT kind of cancer it was.

God she was terrible. Caroline promised herself she would call her later, on a completely unrelated note of course. Her and her mother could barely have any kind of heart to heart in person let alone subtly slid into a phone conversation.

Caroline groaned and focused on the song she was almost finished. It had started out being her final drama piece, she'd meant to write a monologue and ended up writing more lyrics, so now it was unusable. Besides it was far too personal.

That might have been the whole point of the assignment but Caroline didn't give a shit. She had her perfectly maintained walls and she liked it that way.

Caroline decided it was time to let her cyber friend in on some of her troubles. From what he's told her about his father she thinks he might be able to help her, at least make her feel more human about her struggles with guilt. Nick was wise like that.

-0-

"I don't want to go!" Caroline whispered to Elena who was sitting beside her in the lecture theatre. Professor attractive but moody had dashed out for five minutes and had given Caroline another widow of opportunity to whine through.

Elena rolled her eyes as she put down her pen, even in Caroline's wallowing she'd managed to take three times more detailed notes than Elena. She was totally going to steal those later.

"Well you have to Caroline, besides lots of girls would kill to be working with a celebrity of his calibre" Elena smirked when Caroline's face twisted into another amusing expression after she quoted something Klaus had actually said at lunch yesterday.

"Can't you go for me?" Caroline asked pouting and Elena laughed.

"I thought you wanted to pass? Besides drama's your major Caroline and you're actually rather good at it."

"My my was that a compliment Elena Gilbert?" Caroline asked teasingly as she sipped on her coffee. It had been way to hot when she'd gotten it before the lecture; it was finally cool enough for her to drink.

"Like right now for instance. So dramatic," Elena said failing to keep her face neutral at her own joke.

"Ouch and she's back," Caroline said in mock hurt before she remembered why she was complaining. "But seriously you were at lunch yesterday. I know you were busy fantasising how to scratch out your sisters eyes with a chop stick but come on, the guys an A rate ass. He's going to pick on me just because he thinks it's funny." Caroline said honestly. She was working with Brady as well today who was playing Macbeth and then Klaus was going to talk to her teacher too… Everything about the whole scenario screamed abandoned ship every time she imagined his stupid smirky face.

Elena snorted at the comment about the chop sticks, "I wasn't but on an unrelated note all I'd need are my nails," she said inspecting them as she did.

"I know he seems a bit…conceited" Elena started unsurely before Caroline interrupted her incredulously.

"Conceited?"

Elena rolled her eyes, "obviously, the guys famous Care, as for the other stuff he was just flirting with you. What exactly HAPPENED the night you unofficially met?" Elena asked for the hundredth time and Caroline groaned.

"Nothing!" she practically hissed out of frustration because nothing really DID occur. She'd had to give Elena a play by play of the whole night TWICE to explain why Klaus was hitting on Caroline at lunch. At least that's what Elena had called it. Caroline liked to call it 'the hour and a half where he tried to embarrass her anyway he could and make her feel extremely uncomfortable.' She'd wanted to die by the end of it.

The best friend card had hardly been worth the effort.

Caroline was making Elena buy her coffee for the entire week and she planned to ingest as much as she physically could in the time frame. She didn't care if she overdosed on caffeine. Besides she had a history paper due Friday that she'd barely written the introduction to.

"Fine," Elena conceded smiling knowingly. "But you still have to go to class. You ARE on scholarship are you not miss mystic falls valedictorian?"

"Shut your pie hole Gilbert," Caroline snapped before downing the rest of her coffee.

"You wish you had pie," Elena chided her grinning as Dr Maxfield re-entered the room.

"I do." Caroline told her before astutely ignoring her in favour for the lecture. She was so not letting Elena look at her notes later.

-0-

"Hey Brady," Caroline smiled brightly at the older boy who returned her smile. He quirked an eyebrow at her as she began tapping her fingers against her stocking clad thigh. He noted that she seemed kind of jumpy; everyone knew the girl liked coffee. He'd always noticed she had a cup in her hand more often than not at class.

She greedily sipped at the coffee she bought with Elena's food card after her bio lecture.

"Hey Caroline, how many of those have you had this morning?" He asked amused and she paused her fidgeting to think.

"Like three?" she said innocently sounding like a question rather than an answer and he laughed before checking his watch.

Brady was tall and a year or so older than Caroline. He had kind blue eyes that reminded her of Matt and brown floppy hair that he was constantly pushing out of his eyes with his hand like a nervous habit.

He checked his watch and frowned, Caroline had been late but there adviser wasn't here either. He groaned.

He knew when the actor showed up yesterday at their class that he was going to tank in this play. All the girls were swooning and he stood there smiling. Sure he was ridiculously attractive and all, Brady got it, but they were never going to get anything done. But he only really had the semester break next week to nail this, it counted for like half his grade and he had so. Many. Lines. Thank god Caroline could act and had the memory of an elephant.

"God he's not here yet? Five more minutes and I'm ditching…" Caroline grumbled uncaring but she looked more keyed up and she sculled the rest of her coffee. Bradly's mouth twitched in amusement at the action.

"I wasn't aware the fifteen minute rule applied in real life," Brady's head practically spun on its axis at the sound of his voice whereas Caroline rolled her eyes.

What was she doing? She was going to get them an F! Possibly murdered by the student body, maybe even all women of America!

God he hadn't looked that attractive yesterday had he? Not like now with the way he was staring at Caroline.

"Oh it does and it's twenty past actually," Caroline crossed her arms her foot tapping impatiently. Brady wondered whether it was from the coffee. The girl had her picture under perky in the dictionary on any other given day. He'd been worried she was going to be a swooner since he didn't see her yesterday in class for his big introduction.

"I might have hurried if I'd realised you were so eager to see me Caroline,"

Caroline rolled her eyes ignoring the familiar way her name rolled off his tongue. Brady had to do a double take at the exchange between Caroline and one of the most famous actors of their generation.

"I wouldn't hold your breath," she muttered but Klaus' lips twitched hearing it anyway.

"Right," he clapped his hands together and motioned towards the stage, "should we get started?" he asked grinning and Brady felt his stomach drop to his feet. This was more terrifying than the time he took the SATs.

Caroline thankfully had some of the colour drain from her face as well. In contrast it took her seconds to process before she was grabbing their scripts and his hand enthusiastically leading him up the stage with a bounce in her step. The gesture soothed him all be only slightly when they were finally standing alone on the stage in front of an expectant Klaus Mikalson.

She squeezed his hand encouraging before releasing it.

He was going to have to ask what exactly she put into her coffee later.

After the initial terrifying factor Caroline swallowed her pride and her nerves and acted her ass off. Klaus was surprisingly professional and was actually very good at guiding them through the scene.

"You've got to think more about where your characters coming from every time you open your mouth. Otherwise you're just saying words. It's a lot easier to tell if it's coming out flat in Shakespeare, the audience will glaze over and won't take any of it." Brady and Caroline both nodded taking in his latest criticism already trying to figure out how they were going to remedy it.

He was completely focused and everything he said was constructive never making them feel stupid. Caroline had been relieved that he wasn't going to be cracking jokes or inappropriate comments every chance he got.

"Alright take a break," Klaus said tiredly before he got up from the chair he was sitting in.

"NO more coffee Caroline. We'll be scraping you off the walls." Klaus said offhandedly as he scrolled through his phone not looking up. She could see the smirk from her position on the stage though.

Brady sniggered and Caroline wacked him harder than she'd meant to on his arm, she smiled when he'd hissed in pain though.

"I can drink whatever I want," she muttered loud enough for the two of them to hear as she reached for her stuff on the ground near the stairs.

"There's a fine line between a caffeine boost and looking like you're on to much Adderall sweetheart."

Caroline glared at him but the sentence stuck in her head, like she'd heard it before. She tilted her head at the weird sense of familiarity but her phone suddenly rang in her hands. She picked it up and walked up the stairs of the auditorium to answer it in private.

"Stefan?" she asked almost wincing she'd forgotten she'd been dodging his calls when he greeted her with an appropriate amount of frustration.

"She lives!"

She rolled her eyes, "now's not really a good time, I'm rehearsing."

"I know Elena told me, since when does Elena have to tell me things about you?" Caroline winced, he sounded hurt. Even after their break up in high school they'd remained good friends. After a while it had hardly been awkward, but she suddenly realised she hadn't had the proper sit down friend moment with Stefan yet about Damon.

About how his brother was dating his high school sweetheart.

There was bound to be some new tension between the couple turned friends, she just prayed she wasn't heading for the awkward divorced child of their relationship. She was already a real child of divorce after all.

She sighed before sitting down on one of the steps half way up, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the current mortifying aspect of my life." Caroline told him all be a bit sarcastically as she glanced at Klaus at the front of the auditorium. He was smirking at her and motioning at his watch.

She'd barely had two seconds on the phone! She sighed before standing up, walking down the stairs as she tried to wrap up the conversation. "I just want to know you're okay, you know about everything…" he trailed off and she immediately knew he meant her father.

Her eye twitched as she frowned, "I am fine."

She heard Stefan sigh resigned, "if you don't want to talk to me or Elena at least tell Nick." He finished and she realised he really did just want her to talk to someone, anyone.

"I was going to, he hasn't been responding to my emails today." She said honestly. She couldn't remember the last time they hadn't spoken numerous times a day. He'd flooded her inbox all yesterday afternoon and then nothing. After she'd vented about her lunch with a famous person he hadn't responded. It was the juiciest news she'd had her whole life and now he decided he was busy? Honestly what a weirdo.

She almost didn't hear Stefan's teasing retort about them as she stopped at the bottom of the stairs, Klaus was a few seats away seemingly looking through her abandoned script on the floor with interest.

"Nick and I can go many seconds without talking; quit being a jealous girlfriend…Maybe I don't want to talk about it Stefan. Look I've got to go."

Caroline promptly hung up her phone and began pacing the caffeine high leaving her feeling drained and she felt a slight headache coming on. She didn't need this right now.

Klaus would like to say he hadn't meant to eavesdrop but he couldn't help it. Every fibre of his being wanted to gravitate towards her. It was like when you're dying to tell a secret and you feel almost nauseous and giddy simultaneously at the thought.

Except it would be awful if he went up to her and blurted out his secret identity.

He'd wanted to several times throughout the practice. He was trying not to make references to the abundance of information he already knew about her and found himself almost going cross eyed from the concentration it took. Her personality was transparently the same as he'd imagined; the snide comments, the coffee, the diligence in her work effort and her honesty.

He'd never felt so happy and irritated.

It was only when he met Caroline that he realised he knew everything about her. Ironic really seeing as they'd barely spoken about anything of substance in person.

Even through her obvious dislike of him it was easy to talk with her.

He spoke to this woman nearly every day for two years and now his mind seemed to be imploding now that she was here, six feet away from him and she didn't even realise.

He caught the tail end of the conversation and felt a familiar pang of guilt that he'd been feeling on and off all morning since his arrival.

Was it selfish if he wanted to know her?

He knew the answer was a million times yes and that he should just steer clear until he had to leave and to forget the whole thing. He couldn't go there, not with Caroline. He couldn't risk what they had or if she decided to share their emails.

He winced; he wouldn't imagine in a hundred years except in person she'd made it clear she didn't like him.

He couldn't handle it if she didn't want to speak to him ever again. What if it changed everything?

Or what if she was as amazing as he thought she already was?

He shook his head as he watched her exchange a joke with the other boy and he reached out to touch her arm in a friendly gesture. His eyes narrowed involuntarily. Well it couldn't hurt to get to know her could it? She didn't have to know; he could shatter the ridiculous illusion of her once and for all and move on with his life. They'd go back to being in a healthy online friendship and Klaus would stop obsessing like one of his fans.

He was Klaus Mikalson, he wasn't exactly known for his selflessness after all.

The rest of the hour past by rather easily, the boy was admittedly decent and Caroline was pretty good. Despite the fact he knew she was rather uneasy about Shakespeare already. She conveyed her emotions easily without banging you over the head with it like most young people seemed to do with Shakespeare. He found himself smiling more often than not and grinned when she flinched as he jumped up on stage with them.

It wasn't a particularly intimate scene, he'd picked something easier to get the chemistry flowing. It was their first scene together where she starts to sway the idea of murder to her husband. Once they'd loosened up a bit they jelled really well together. He hoped the rest of them were half as good.

"Alright now actually look like your married," he told them as he jumped up on the stage and walked behind them. It was mostly to give into his desires to actually touch her, something that two days ago would have been an impossible thought.

He grabbed the boys arm a little roughly and hers painfully gently his fingers gently touching her bare arm. His mouth twitched when she let in a sharp breath as he pulled them closer together. She made heavy eye contact with Bradly because Klaus was still holding them in place and the warmth of his hand was distracting her.

"Remember that you're fighting against the fragility of being a woman, you're willing to kill Duncan if you have to yourself to make Macbeth king and to further your own ambitions as well. Your dominance has to come across in the scene. But remember no one likes a wussy Macbeth."

Caroline turned her head at the last part of the comment with a risen eyebrow, "what the hell does that mean?"

He laughed and let his hands fall to his side before he promptly stuck them in his jeans. She was even prettier when she was annoyed at him and he fought the urge to try and touch her again. He wondered what her hair felt like as he watched her put some of it behind her ear. _Stop it._ He scolded himself, what was he a teenager?

He cleared his throat focusing on the task at hand.

"I mean it's still Shakespearean and as woman power as everyone goes on about him in all his plays eventually all of those empowered women get torn down, conform or in your case die off stage in a presumed suicide." She blinked because he was right. Her character basically has a meltdown for her part in the murders and hallucinates blood in a sleep walking scene that she was terrified of screwing up because who doesn't know that scene?

She nodded slowly trying to focus on one fear at a time.

"Okay let's block it," Klaus said after a moment grinning and she smiled for the first time genuinely because he was really good at this and looked like he was really trying to help them.

"You totally went to drama school," she told him lightly with an amused smile, not for the first time wondering where all her confidence came from when she spoke to him. Maybe it's because he spent so much time trying to embarrass her yesterday, she'd been forced to rebuff him somewhat firmly and then angrily. But she couldn't help but notice they did fall into easy conversation whether it was hostile or not.

His schooling had been obvious as he talked about their characters and directed them. He knew what he was doing.

"You thought I just hoped on a plane to America and crossed my fingers?" he asked amused as he lifted his eyebrows at her. He smiled when it looked like he'd succeeded in making her blush.

She coughed awkwardly, "I don't know."

"I don't really want this to go to your head or anything but I've never met a celebrity besides you." She managed sarcastically and was rewarded by Bradly when he snorted. Klaus grinned taking the obvious non compliment like a compliment. He'd probably had much worse by people far more important than small town Caroline.

"I'm honored love," he said as he moved her to be angled further down stage forcibly and Caroline tried not to look as startled as he man handled her. When she looked annoyed he would just say something on the furthest side of professionalism that would only make her turn read. _It was just acting._ She reminded herself as she tried not to think about where his hands were.

"As to your question we Brits nearly always go to school. I went to RADA myself." He told her with a shrug releasing his hands from her hips. She spun around unable to hide her surprise.

"You went to RADA?" She exchanged a quick look to Bradly who raised his eyebrows impressed. They'd learnt about that place in one of her dryer units. It was one of the oldest and hardest to get into in the UK. Lots of amazing actors had been there.

He chuckled and she ignored how musical it sounded, "Don't sound so surprised sweetheart it's discouraging." He told her with a smirk and she was suddenly terrified and partly eager to know if he was going back to the way he was at lunch yesterday.

"I'm not," she told him with a scoff turning away from his pleased expression. Like he needed anyone to inflate his ego, but she wasn't surprised. She'd seen his movies, most of them. Not in a go out of your way kind of way but she'd kind of just been doing it since she saw Dirt and loved it. Nearly everyone on the planet had seen Razors it was the next biggest book adaptation since harry potter. She'd even just seen one of his recently, it was Stefan's pick but she'd appreciated the car chases and shirtless scenes after he'd gotten bloody in some kind of fight. She'd caught herself wondering if what was under his grey Henley was as impressive in real life as it was on the big screen.

-0-

Caroline hadn't realised how drained she'd been until she'd slumped across the threshold to her room. It was safe to say she was down from the coffee high.

She flipped on the lights and screamed by a surprising presence. "My god Kat what are you doing here?" Caroline exclaimed almost having a heart attack as she stared at the older woman draped casually on her bed reading one of her magazines.

She didn't even look up, "I came to see Elena but she left me after five minutes,"

Caroline dumped her bag on the floor before jumping on her bed beside Katherine who suddenly snapped the magazine shut.

"Why didn't anyone tell me she was dating Damon? Insufferable twit, what happened to Stefan?" Katherine said with distaste and Caroline shrugged stretching out to lean against the bed board.

"They broke up senior year," Caroline supplied and Katherine looked at her with an appropriate amount of shock. They really did seem like the perfect couple to the untrained eye.

"Elena never told me," Katherine said bitterly.

"You weren't exactly accepting postcards at the time," Caroline told her and surprised the older girl with her honesty. Katherine groaned.

"Not you to. Elena really needs to get over the whole abandonment thing, Jeremy likes me again" she grumbled and Caroline rolled her eyes.

"That's because Jeremy isn't Elena. He wasn't old enough to understand when you flip flopped back in and out of their lives." Caroline explained gently because it was true. Elena was only being so defensive because she thought her sister would just leave again without a word.

"But I don't flip flop anymore. I want to know them." Katherine said irritated masking her emotions as always.

"That's great, but she doesn't know that. How many times did you say you were clean only to have gone the next day minus a wallet or two?" Caroline said lightly remembering how she'd even fallen victim to Katherine's charms and Katherine winced at the memory.

"But I wouldn't be back after everything if I didn't mean it. I just don't want her to blame me anymore." Katherine said getting off of Caroline's bed to stretch restlessly. Elena had all but told her to go to hell this afternoon.

"She doesn't blame you," Caroline said immediately understanding what she meant.

"Of course she does, I'm the reason they died. I blame me to." Katherine told her flatly and Caroline had no idea what to say.

Because what DID you say to that?

"You just need to take it slow," she said after some time passed and the older Gilbert groaned in annoyance.

"I'm only here for a week and a half," Katherine told her inspecting her perfectly manicured nails.

"A WHOLE WEEK AND A HALF?" Okay maybe the coffee was still making her crazy had she just yelled that out like the crazy bag lady she was? The answer was yes by Katherine's amused expression.

"I'm sorry I didn't realise you started channeling Elena. I thought you liked me Caroline." Katherine told her in mock hurt grinning when Caroline sighed sinking into her bed.

"No no of course not, that just means Mr I'm so amazing I know everything about everything and banned coffee from the auditorium to be a prick" she told a breath, "is staying that long."

Katherine grinned at her like a cat and she groaned, "What now?" she asked and immediately regretted it.

"You know lots of girls would jump at the chance to tap a celebrity." She said nonchalantly and Caroline spluttered.

"Katherine!"

"What!? I'm engaged to his brother, from the rumours and the amount of girls I've seen parading about in the past I ASSUME it's genetic."

Okay ew now she was imagining Katherine and her button up boyfriend going at it.

"NO one said anything about sleeping with anyone!" She managed to say mentally scrubbing her brain.

"I'm just saying he's obviously interested. He doesn't do that very often." Katherine said with a shrug. It was true, Klaus normally just had to walk past somewhere for women to fall at his feet. He was always a lay it on thick and all out there kind of guy but she hadn't seen him smile like he had at lunch yesterday for a long time.

"Are you kidding me? The man hits on anything in a skirt! Or pants! Anything moving," Caroline told her with disbelief remembering how hard it had been to LEAVE the auditorium once the whole college caught wind of Klaus Mikalson being here. A group of like fifteen girls had mobbed him.

Katherine snorted, "It was only a suggestion."

Caroline's phone buzzed and she checked it for something to do with her hands, it was Jesse. She smiled; she hadn't spoken to him in a while. "Speaking of boys," Caroline told her trailing off and was rewarded with Katherine rushing to take her phone off her.

"Of course you already have a boyfriend! Tell me all about him,"

Caroline smiled not bothering to correct her because she'd really missed her nosy older not sister.

She ignored the part of her heart that sank when it was Jesse's name flashing across her phone instead of Nick's.

**AN: I know Katherine's not super bitchy but she's trying to mend fences and as we know Katherine's always liked Caroline better ;) As always review I love hearing your thoughts, I'm like halfway through the next chapter so that will be up soon. **


	6. Chapter 6

Katherine had stayed the night in Elena's bed.

"God they sleep over on a school night? What are we going to do about this Caroline?"

Caroline looked up from where she was trying to find an outfit blowing a stay hair out of her face not realising she was awake yet. She'd enjoyed Katherine's company last night, it reminded her of when she and Elena were younger and Katherine would buy them junk food for a movie night.

Although they'd made do with some vending machine chips and painting each other's nails.

She raised an eyebrow at the older woman scoffing, "WE? Elena can do what she likes." Caroline told her shortly because she already made clear her dislike of them dating. She was staying out of it until Damon did something to screw it up.

Katherine sat up yawning and Caroline could almost groan at how perfect she looked as she slightly adjusted her ever present curls.

"Yes but Damon?" she crinkled her nose not being able to see it, "I only met him a few times and it wasn't exactly a great impression. Wait weren't you dating Stefan's brother in high school?" Katherine asked squinting as she tried to recall the memory. It had been a particular hazy year; she'd been really off the rails at the time. But she remembered Caroline dating an older guy.

"Stefan has only ONE brother right?" Katherine asked again as she stood up stretching in a pair of Elena's pyjama's.

"It was forever ago," Caroline muttered not wanting to talk about it.

"Elena's dating your ex? Doesn't she know that's not aloud?" Katherine said annoyed and Caroline smiled slightly at her reaction.

"I think it probably comes in second to dating your exes brother," Caroline said changing the subject.

"Yes when did my no wrong little sister turn into me?" Katherine asked teasingly as she started to go through Elena's clothes.

"Steady on Kat," Caroline said with a laugh, "I don't think anyone's trying to steal your title."

"Damn straight, sober and I'm still the heavy weight champion." She told Caroline with a wink as she tried to find something she liked to wear home. She groaned, "now if only she dressed like me."

Caroline laughed thinking of Elena dressed in some of the famous Katherine Gilbert get up's, it was hard to imagine. She grabbed some of her clothes and headed for the shower.

She really hoped her and Elena made up before she went home. Caroline dried her hair and slipped into her underwear and a skirt she'd bought a couple of months ago purely for the fact that it was practically crinkle proof. Crap, where was her shirt?

She walked out of the bathroom a towel in her hand as she shook her damp hair. Walking straight to her bed to find her shirt that was lying there; she picked it up turning around only to have it slip from her fingers.

"Oh my god!" Caroline shouted covering herself and then scrambling to pick up the shirt as she ran to the bathroom. She was mortified, Katherine's laughter, more like cackling wasn't helping either.

She was just going to stay in the bathroom. They would leave eventually.

"Caroline?" Katherine called.

"Seriously how long does it take to put a top on?"

Maybe she would take the hint and go away?

"It's not like you were naked get your ass out here I'm leaving!"

Well she was Katherine; Caroline groaned and felt all the blood rush to her cheeks when she saw Elijah standing in her doorway awkwardly. Thankfully he seemed about as uncomfortable as her, even though his fiancé was grinning.

Did Katherine find EVERYONE'S discomfort amusing?

"I should have raided your closet you have much prettier bras,"

The answer was yes.

Caroline crossed her arms like she was still topless, "you are NOT wearing Elena's underwear." Caroline told her flatly and Katherine laughed.

"God no, do you think she'll miss this? It was the only thing I liked." Katherine said twirling around in a top she bought Elena a summer ago that she had never worn.

Caroline smiled rolling her eyes, "I'm surprised the tags aren't still on it. Elena pulled her polite present face when I bought that for her." Caroline said laughing.

"Good morning Elijah," she ventured being the first to break the awkward ice.

He cleared his throat, "good morning Caroline." Nope still wasn't quite looking at her she smiled, he really was a gentlemen. Unlike his brother, he and Katherine really made such an odd pair. "Pardon the intrusion I've come to collect Katherine. I trust you had a good night?" he asked finally meeting her eyes and she nodded.

"Yes," Katherine said smiling as she linked her arm through Elijah's suit clad one. "It wasn't hard, this one actually likes me." She gestured vaguely at Caroline.

Caroline scoffed, "well it's hard to kick you out when you've ambushed where I sleep," Caroline retorted sarcastically but she smiled.

She hugged Katherine goodbye and whispered in her ear, "I'll talk to her." she promised referring to Elena. Katherine had divulged last night that Elena had said she never wanted to see her again, Caroline promised she'd try and get her in the same room one more time before she left next week.

Elijah smiled at her and bid her goodbye along with Katherine. Caroline had about a minute of piece before there was insistent knocking on her door.

She opened her door groaning. It was Stefan.

"Hello friend, so pleased to see you" he replied sarcastically leaning forward on the door frame.

She frowned confused looking at his attire, "what are you-" and then she promptly tried to shut the door in his face once she'd realised why he was here.

His arm was faster, "no you don't."

"I'm sick Stefan go away," she said pushing uselessly on the door giving him a half assed sounding cough.

"If you actually stuck to one of our exercise commitments you might have been fast enough to slam the door in my face," he told her blandly. She sighed relinquishing her hold on the door and Stefan waltz in like he owned the place grinning and she grumbled.

"What is it with everyone I know and boundaries?" She muttered and Stefan scoffed.

"What?"

"I'm sorry did YOU just accuse me of having no boundaries? Reigning miss meddler of all things not her business?" Stefan asked his voice heavy with sarcasm and she glared.

He clapped his hands together too enthusiastically for Caroline's liking making her jump, it was far too early for any kind of enthusiasm.

"Alright let's go, you're not wearing that are you?" He asked her raising a brow at her skirt and top combo.

She sighed chucking her hands at her side like a petulant child. Too bad Stefan was immune to Caroline tantrums. "I don't wanna go," she told him pouting and he rolled his eyes.

"You promised," he said and Caroline relented by his slightly saddened eyes as he turned his large green ones on her.

Right she was being a shitty friend to him lately.

She turned around on the spot digging out a pair of shorts and a singlet, and thinking better of it a sports bra. She looked back at Stefan pointing at him suddenly serious.

"Stay here while I change," she told him adamantly remembering her very recent encounter with Elijah and Stefan frowned.

"Where would I go?" he asked entirely too amused by her antics and Caroline scoffed turning around towards the bathroom in return.

"Better lock the door Caroline!" he called out the warning teasingly and she slammed it in response.

She jumped when he was leaning languidly against the other side of the door when she was changed.

"Five years of platonic friendship and you honestly think I'd finally accost you in your bathroom? In a sports bra?" He added sounding entirely to offended by his imaginary scenario.

"Good to know everyone cares so much about my bra's," she told him sarcastically referring to Katherine's comment and Stefan quirked a brow, he was confused again. Caroline pulled on her sneakers and Stefan waited for her to elaborate.

He opened his mouth and she waved him with her hand, "can we at least get coffee first?" she asked hopefully and he shook his head arms crossed.

"The whole point is to exercise not undo it by shovelling caffeine into your body," Stefan told her like a-know-it-all and she rolled her eyes as she tied her laces into bows.

"You sound just like Nick," she muttered to him and found herself surprisingly smiling instead of being annoyed by the similarity.

"Something I finally like about him," he amended with the fake snotiness he used when he pretended he was threatened by who he sometimes affectionately calls her imaginary boyfriend.

Caroline got up walking past him, "can we at least go after? For a reward?" she asked making sure to bat her eyelashes and make her eyes as wide as possible. She grinned when she heard the tell-tale sigh of getting what she wanted.

"Yay!" she squealed suddenly excited to exercise as she bounded out of the dorms with an extra spring in her step. Too bad it hadn't lasted.

"Ahhhhrggh I want to die, why are we doing this? Why did you make me do this again? Never again...argghh I just wanted my coffee…where is my coffee? Stefan? Stefan! I think I'm dying" She whimpered starting to mutter unintelligibly.

Stefan watched his friend rolling on the ground with thinly veiled amusement as he finally relented and allowed them to take a break. They'd barely been jogging fifteen minutes.

"Has anyone ever told you; you have a serious problem?" he asked her not being able to stop the chuckle escaping his lips and she ignored him completely as she dramatically rolled to her side placing a hand over her face.

"Say nice things at my funeral," she cried before she promptly stopped moving altogether. What was she playing dead now?

"Or that you're dramatic?" he added muttering as he reached down to help her to her feet. Only when she started to reach into the air like a child wanting to be picked up a moment after her faked untimely death.

"Elena yesterday," she replied immediately once she was standing and he rolled his eyes.

"For your sake I hope your acting's better than your running," he told her still holding onto her arms steadying her. She pulled back with a mock gasp offended.

"I'll have you know that THE Klaus Mikalson said I wasn't all terrible." Caroline told him with mock pride remembering his final send-off of praise for her that hadn't been all that praise worthy.

"Well if it wasn't ALL terrible I want to be thanked in your Oscar speech. Stefan Salvatore; friend, omego, remember to mention I can run more than a mile without being winded-" he grinned at her and she shoved him, her strength returned as she continued for him.

"Reigning cupcake eating champion, perfectly coiffed haired and annoying pain in my ass." She smirked when he rolled his eyes and they began walking slowly along the parks path. She was thankful for the change of pace; it wasn't like she was that unfit she did yoga all the time. Like the annoying girl at the front who looks like an effortless pretzel kind of yoga.

She was so dragging Stefan to yoga next time she agreed to something as ridiculous as exercising with a friend who could probably bounce a quarter off his abs.

"Well as long as you cry," he told her nodding like it was now some kind of agreement she was now held to.

"Oh yeah, I could probably squeeze a few out for you, all I'd have to do was think about the last twenty minutes of my life. Do you think I'm more cultured in life now?" Caroline asked suddenly serious.

"Speaking as someone whose life has flashed before their eyes," she continued wistfully almost sniffling.

"And you say I'M the pain in the ass?" he muttered before he started to make them run again, yes RUN.

He was definitely the pain in the ass. Did he ever get tired?

Caroline was fairly certain they weren't even jogging the way to her favourite coffee shop.

-0-

"Are you alright Caroline?" She almost jumped at the sound of her name. She turned to see Brady starring at her slightly quizzical. She was leaning against the theatre doors rather than waiting inside for their bigger group rehearsal to start.

She'd ventured in only to make an awkward circle back out again. EVERYONE was talking about Klaus. The girls down the hall, the line at the food hall, her drama class. Well okay that should be allowed, he was helping them after all. But no one seemed interested in the actual play like they had been weeks ago.

Did they forget they were being graded on this?

She would have gotten coffee but she didn't think she'd have enough time. Their drama teacher Mr King was running their rehearsal today and he was known to lock the door dot on class time. She didn't want to be singled out, especially not if Klaus Mikalson was going to be there to laugh at her.

"What? Oh yeah, just waiting in my Klaus free bubble." She told him her hand twitching slightly in annoyance and Brady snorted out a laugh.

"Mind of I join you?" He asked and she merely waved her hand as she slid down to the nearby bench. He joined her soon after.

"You look kind of tired…and twitchy." He added amused as he looked over Caroline's slouching form.

She sighed stretching her arms across herself to rid her of some of the pain of what she was calling Stefan's drill session. Boy could whip an army into shape; she knew she should have said no to the squat cool down. A cool down was not more running and vicious exercise, it was stretching and meditation. You know where you collapse on the ground in silence until you can move again. It was a tradition that had been working rather well for her all these years.

"My friend Stefan made me go running with him this morning," she said sighing as she leant against the cool brick.

He nodded a tad more sympathetic, "Danny always tries to make go to the gym with him."

"Danny Rock? He's like on the football team right?" he nodded.

"I didn't know you guys were friends." Caroline said smiling offhandedly not having actually met Danny before. She watched Brady turn a shade of red she was certain she'd been wearing most of the week around Klaus. He looked a little uncomfortable before he nodded looking up at her and then smiled looking past her.

A set of feet were rapidly approaching and Caroline looked up to see that they belonged to the football player they were just talking about. Brady went to say something to her but stopped short smiling at the approaching male.

"Someone's ears must be burning," she muttered smiling and blinked at the exchange that happened next.

Danny stopped in front of them and leant right down to kiss Brady on the cheek gently grinning. "Hey Braids," he sat beside him on the short amount of space left to his right. "Who's your friend?" he asked leaning into him slightly as he smiled at Caroline who had recovered enough to offer him a smile and her name.

"Oh so you're the girl that's going to be macking on my boyfriend," he said knowingly and Brady shot her an apologising look before rolling his eyes at Danny.

He was much more at ease since Caroline's non reaction to his boyfriend. He was a lot more prone to PDA than he was; it had nothing to do with sexual orientation. He was just a private person, ironic that he was dating a football playing Christin who was firmly out of the closet.

"Please we both know you're more worried about the third person present during our rehearsal." He told him with a slight smirk as his boyfriend frowned annoyed.

It was funny for him to be the insecure one for once. As much as he disliked the attention brought on by Klaus Mikalson's arrival he couldn't say he minded the jealous side of his boyfriend. Needlessly of course, obviously. But what was there to worry about? Sure Brady would stare but in what world did Danny think he could or would touch?

"I'm not WORRIED," he started confidently, "but come on Brady we saw that movie together last month the guys like a model, a British model. I know you like accents." He started rambling and stopped when Brady elbowed him glaring when Caroline laughed loudly at the statement.

"Besides he was too interested in staring at Caroline." Brady said looking at her with a smirk, she gaped like a fish silencing herself and he chuckled.

"HE WAS NOT." She said firmly feeling her face heat up.

"Oh please he wasn't being hands on for my benefit." Brady said with his familiar snort and Caroline made a noise of indignation at the insinuation before scoffing.

They were interrupted by a familiar voice, "hey Danny you ready to go? Oh hey Caroline"

She looked up to see Jesse offering her one of his famous heart melting smiles and she grinned back on reflex. "Hey Jesse long time no see."

"Yeah, were still on for tomorrow night aren't we?" he asked hopefully and she nodded.

"Definitely," she said pushing some of her hair behind her ear smiling. She was in definite need of some fun. Distracting fun, Katherine had encouraged her last night after she'd shot down her other encouragement of having sex with Klaus.

"Alright Alright lets go Jesse you guys can make mushy faces at each other tomorrow." Danny told them with a faux eye roll turning to give Brady a chaste kiss which he returned with a smile. Caroline was startled when Jesse repeated the gesture on her cheek, lingering. It wasn't like they hadn't kissed before but this was nice, sweeter. She still wasn't sure she wanted all that with him, but she HAD agreed to a proper date with him. It was probably to be expected. Before she knew it Danny was on his feet and dragged Jesse with him down the pathway who called out a goodbye.

"See you tomorrow night Caroline!"

She blushed, it had been** loud**.

"**BYE BABE!" **

"Jesus Christ," Brady mumbled touching his face in embarrassment giving Danny a short wave in response and Caroline started laughing like she hadn't in days at how much louder Danny's goodbye had been.

It wasn't all to surprising when he spoke up behind them given Danny's conversation about being insecure and his loud goodbye.

"Are you two just going to stand out here all day or are we actually going to get something done this afternoon?"

Caroline's hand twitched in anger and lack of coffee at the British tone that sounded annoyed. She whirled around to see Klaus staring at them, well more specifically right at her with obvious irritation.

"Excuse me? You just arrived!" Caroline couldn't help the protest exclaiming from her mouth and shut in when he glared.

"Well you're the one holding us up more now love. My time is precious after all, as you know" he told her coolly and she held his gaze unrelenting before she scoffed and turned on her heel without a word picking up her bag from the bench. She let the door almost shut him in the face as it swung behind her.

"Ops," she muttered not turning around to even check as she went to go sit down in one of the chairs in the front row.

Take that pretty boy.

Precious my ass.

He glared at her as he made his way across the room and she smiled the picture of innocence. Brady sat beside her and smiled, hoping this meant they were friends in her crusade against the Klaus robots who were now fawning over him. She watched him smile widely at all the attention not once looking back over in her direction.

"Are you trying to fail?" Brady asked her with an amused brow raised and she sighed. He could really sway Mr King to fail her if he so inclined, she really hoped he wouldn't though. He wasn't that petty was he?

Apparently he could be.

He'd picked on her all afternoon, he hadn't been particularly nice to anyone but he was being blatant in his disregard to her. Apparently she must have forgotten how to act over night because he hadn't seemed even at all this horrible yesterday. God if they had to take it from her line for the fourteenth time just because he didn't like the way she entered she was going to deck him.

Right in his money maker.

He could reimburse her for all she cared.

At least Mr King hadn't been in the room for most of it. Even Caitlin who she couldn't stand had muttered a quiet "geez" at Klaus' behaviour. She was fairly certain this was everyone else's first rehearsal with him. _Way to make an impression Klaus. _She thought bitterly.

Everyone breathed a sigh when the tension broke at a break being called for, it was practically dark out when Mr King announced they would get twenty minutes.

COFFEECOFFEECOFFEECOFFEECOFFEECOFFEE

She grinned leaping up, it was coffee time. She was practically shaking. She'd only had half a cup today. "Come with me?" Caroline asked Brady who scoffed.

"It's getting late Caroline, when do you even sleep?" he asked amused and she glared, "besides. Should I really be seen with you? I hope bad diction isn't something you can catch." He told her as a joke trying to lighten up her obvious tenseness.

She ground her teeth, "I want to kill him. I want to tear out his British tongue and annunciate exactly what I think in perfect diction telling him he's being a fu-"

"OKaaaay, time for that coffee." Brady said steering them towards the door. He was dying to get out of the room anyway. His voice horse, he'd had a lot of lines that scene. He could safely say he knew all of them for it considering how many times they'd just done it. Granted Caroline had repeated her shorter lines more than him.

What was his problem?

"I thought I said no coffee in here,"

"You have got to be kidding me," she muttered trying to scull more of it turning around to face Klaus who was looking at her expectantly. Like she'd just throw it away like how someone might put out a cigarette. She only smiled and took a step backwards out of the open door. She could have sworn he might have pulled his lips up into some kind of smile at that but he was only starring at her through narrowed eyes now.

Caroline noticed he was holding a paper cup of his own, "well what's that?" she asked and she didn't even care how cutting it came out but he smirked.

"It's tea,"

"Of course it is." She muttered taking another long sip. It was quite cold standing in the doorway; the coffee barely replaced the warmth as she drank.

"Time's almost up love," he told her smirking as she downed the beverage, that couldn't be healthy. But she saw it as a challenge barely noticing as it burned her throat.

"Seriously what are you the coffee police?" she asked sighing when it was clear he wasn't going to move away just so he could watch her tetter on her heels in the doorway.

"You know you really shouldn't drink so much of that, it's going to hinder your performance."

"Well I'm sure you'll let me here about it if it does," she told him flatly tossing the empty cup into the bin just inside the door before she brushed passed him forcefully back into the auditorium.

She didn't notice his regretful expression that followed her.

**AN: Hey guys thanks so much for all the reviews and birthday wishes last chapter! So people wanted jealous Klaus don't worry he'll get jealous, he's already pretty jealous haha  
>It's a bit of a filler I know but there will be Caroline Nick stuff next chapter which should be interesting…stay tuned and review<strong>


	7. Chapter 7

"Since when do you want to go out with us?"

"I ASKED Elijah, you're forever hanging on his coattails." Klaus replied dryly as they sat at the bar in the only decent food establishment of this god forsaken small town Katherine was from; The Mystic Grill. What a clever name.

"What's got you so wired? Are they already making terrible trees?" Katherine asked signally for service with her giant ring clad hand.

Klaus didn't rise to the bait before he gruffly asked for scotch.

"Ah Matty blue blue long time no see!" Katherine said grinning at the barman who rolled his eyes at the nickname.

"Must you still call me that? I'm not a kid anymore," he asked because he didn't think she'd ever called him anything else his entire life.

"My apologies Matthew, I'll have a soda water." She said with faux sweetness before she turned towards Elijah who was seated beside a grumbling Klaus. "Elijah honey; tell **Mister** Matty blue blue what you'd like to drink."

He smiled a little in return at his fiancés antics before politely ordering a scotch as well. Matt dutifully poured two glasses before Klaus spoke up.

"Leave the bottle mate," he stated rather than asked and Matt nodded placing it on the bar and turned to get Katherine's drink.

"So I take it some very BAD trees then," Katherine muttered and Klaus glared.

"Shut it Katherine," he growled before downing his drink in one go. He ignored the disapproving look his brother shot him.

"May I ask what spurred on this particular stroke of behaviour brother? I don't see any camera phones or crowds." He noted observationally, every time he and Katherine had been out with Klaus around here they hadn't been approached to many times. It was what normally annoyed Klaus when he was out in public with others.

"You're welcome," Katherine told them both as she sipped on the drink Matt had just placed in front of her. She smiled at the lemon and the straw he'd put into her water.

"Yes because my great publicist Katherine Gilbert who can't even keep my indiscretions from the media made a whole town of nosey country bumpkins learn some privacy." Klaus told her bitterly pouring himself another drink.

"Well I am great, thankyou for finally recognising that Klaus," she began with an easy smile to which Klaus scoffed at.  
>"But not everything's about you. Several members of this community wouldn't risk a conversation let alone a confrontation with me." She said looking around at the familiar grill to which she'd been tossed out of more times than she could count as a teenager and then a young adult.<p>

"Matty here even tossed me once, don't worry bluey I forgive you." Katherine said with a wave of her hand as Matt looked up embarrassed as the two men stared at him and then back at Katherine.

He'd been in high school, around the beginning of his glamorous Mystic Grill employment, "well you were scarring the customers." He told her allowing a smile because she obviously wasn't worried since she'd brought it up.

"Now she just spends all her time scarring me," Klaus offered her a somewhat malicious smile and she in turn offered him her patented 'you will pay for that later' smile. It had extra teeth and it was as sharp as a razor blade.

He may or may not regret that later.

"I saw Elena in town yesterday was she visiting you?" Matt asked because Elena hadn't even mentioned her sister even though Matt had seen Katherine in here a few times now this week. He was curious.

Katherine's smile dropped and was replaced with bitterness, "no. I went up to Whitmore. Caroline was more than happy to keep me occupied last night though. Much more forgiving that one, heart hasn't completely frozen over yet."

She noticed Klaus' expression harden at the mention of Caroline and her lips twitched when he exhaled nosily.

Everyone should listen to her she was always right all of the time.

"Elijah you enjoyed getting reacquainted with her this morning?"

Her poor well-mannered fiancé spluttered, his drink sloshing over the sides at Katherine's trap of a question which came out more like a statement.

"Don't worry honey, nothing to be embarrassed about. Caroline has rather nice breasts." She grinned when both men seemed to choke on their drinks. Matt muttered about going to go clean a table and left the bar.

"How would you know?" Klaus turned glaring at his brother who looked at Katherine unsurely. What on earth was her angle?

"I-well she, I went to collect Katherine this morning. Caroline happened to walk out of the bathroom in her underwear, she wasn't aware of my presence." He hurried on.

"She screamed dropped her clothes and ran away, quite adorable. They grow up so fast." Katherine finished and it became clear to Elijah that she'd only brought it up to irritate Niklaus instead of chasting him. His brother wasn't so vulgar as to be angered that he missed out on seeing a college girl partially naked was he?

"God Klaus try not looking so jealous," Katherine told him in a sing song voice and he growled.

"I'm not, your just being particularly infuriating tonight." He grit out gripping his glass as he swirled the liquid trying to calm himself.

"No I think you have me confused with you,"

He couldn't exactly fault her, he'd been marinating in self-pity ever since he'd left the bloody rehearsal. He'd really screwed up.

The feeling of jealousy was so foreign to him he hadn't even recognised it when it came up to him and slapped him in his face.

He didn't do jealousy, especially not over people. He was possessive of his things but that was what they were-things…things he already obtained. When someone had something he wanted he went out and bought it. A car, a boat, a Rolex it never mattered. He'd never really felt envious for women, they were all the same; he could always find someone prettier. He'd never felt this specific intense feeling.

All he knew was that he didn't like it.

He hated it.

He hated that he knew it was from a simple kiss, it hadn't even been on the lips.

What was the big deal? All he knew was that his blood had all but boiled when the stupid jock mentioned their date with a stupid obvious grin on his face. The worst part was that she smiled, contently. Caroline had all but told him last week that she wasn't interested in that Jesse kid! Well at least he thought she'd told him, Nick.

What else wasn't true?

It was meant to be a good thing, he wasn't meant to like her, he wasn't meant to be gripping his knuckles; turning them white with anger. He hadn't meant to be rude either but the words slipped out bitterly, childishly he knew but he didn't care. He ignored the way her face lit up with fire at his words, her whole face changing.

There wasn't a smile for him. Not even a glimpse of what she'd given to a college boy she supposedly didn't even like. But she was attracted to him; he tried racking his brains for that particular discussion they'd shared.

_But he's really hot; maybe I'm just trying not be a slut_

The anger didn't subside like he'd hoped and only intensified when she'd nearly slammed the door in his face.

He was petty, not that he'd admit it but it wasn't one of his most attractive attributes.

He'd picked on her; everyone could see it and he couldn't stop. He'd made her repeat her line over and over again watching as she only got more irritated with him persevering through the scene. He'd even lied telling her that her diction was as bad as first graders. She'd clenched her teeth but he hadn't stopped.

It was only when she'd turned away from him after their last argument filled with more anger than witty banter that he'd realised it was jealousy.

That he wasn't just pushing her away or being a dick.

He was actually hurt and it terrified him.

Now he was drowning himself at a bar that wasn't even really a bar with his annoying publicist and his brother who'd seen said girl in her underwear before he would.

Would?

He poured himself another drink.

This was hardly making him feel better.

She'd probably never even speak to him again.

His phone buzzed loudly in the pocket of his pants and he was slow to reach for it until he recognised the tone.

It was an email.

_Nick now is not the time for you to decide you are over talking to me._

His hand paused over his phone staring at it blankly. He'd been ignoring them for days out of guilt. Guilt that he knew her, it would be like when they talked about 'Klaus Mikalson' but a billion times worse. He could manipulate their relationship. He could have manipulated their non-exist real life one if he hadn't been too busy sabotaging it today.

Was he going to lie to the only person he'd never had to lie to? To the only person he'd ever been able to really just talk to?

He could tell by her messages that she was confused and sad and it killed him; Because Caroline really wanted to talk to him.

She really wanted Nick.

For the first time ever since he'd met her two years ago he didn't feel like Nick.

He was meant to BE Nick.

That was who he thought he really was on the inside, what he showed her.

All the best parts.

She was meant to like the best parts of him.

But she didn't.

Someone was meant to love the best parts of him.

_Seriously? You spend all of Sunday blowing up my phone and then radio silence?_

_I had a really bad day, a shitty week actually…_

Klaus stared at the phone with a frown; he could guess why she had a bad day.

_Did I do something wrong?_

Klaus wasn't sure if it was because he was being sorry for himself or if it was because he was drunk. But he broke the promise he made to himself.

**No of course not love, I've just been busy with work all week, there hasn't been good reception. **

That sounded okay right? Believable? Should he really be pouring himself ANOTHER scotch?

_Right. Work… you know what don't even worry about it _

Klaus groaned ignoring the fuzziness that was starting to invade his head.

**Sweetheart don't. I'm sorry, truly. Did you want to talk about it?**

There was silence for a few minutes and Klaus wondered whether he'd just lost this part of her too.

_I did, I do. It's okay I know your busy._

**Never too busy for you**

It wasn't a lie so he didn't regret sending it. The slew of messages he'd been anticipating about the rehearsal weren't about that at all.

They were about her father, he was sick. Really sick.

He felt like an idiot.

_I mean you don't have a good relationship with your dad either I just don't know what to do. Everyone expects me to feel this one way and I'm not sure if I do._

Right HIS father.

Klaus is fairly certain they'd only mentioned their father's in tense passing. Both understanding it was best left alone, some things you just didn't poke again. That was what she meant, that was why she was asking him.

**Well what do you want to do?**

_I have no idea_

**That's okay too**

_Is it? _

**Of course love, you don't have to have everything figured out **

There was another pause in the conversation and Klaus half listened to Katherine and Elijah having an argument about something wedding related. God had they even started planning the bloody thing yet?

_Tell me something funny_

**I completely blew any chance I had with this blonde I like today**

Klaus froze when she didn't answer again and he took to counting the ceiling tiles to calm himself before he scrambled to answer the noise his phone started making.

_That's not funny, what did you do? Did you offer her tea? I told you lots of girls don't like that hippie stuff :P_

Klaus laughed at the irony, he may have winced had he been sober but he wasn't.

**Yeah she definitely doesn't like tea. How is your love life?**

_That was subtle… I have a date with Jesse tomorrow_

It was his turn to linger in his response. He felt the jealousy rise in him again and he realised it was different from all the times he'd teased her about the senior who was trying to get into her pants.

He wanted to tell her that she shouldn't go.

That she didn't even like him.

But after he saw them together today he wasn't sure.

**Well I hope you have a good time love.**

What the hell was wrong with him?

"Klaus who are you texting?"

"None of your business!" he snapped at his brother who raised an eyebrow at him.

"Didn't you know Lijah'a Klausy has a secret girlfriend." Klaus growled at the butchering of his name, god Katherine was the only completely sober one but she managed to be as irksome as someone who wasn't.

"It's called having friends Katherine, I happen to be rather popular." He told her snidely.

"Yeah with your booty calls maybe." She muttered.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Caroline had never been so relieved for the weekend. All she had to do was get through Friday.

And by Friday she of course meant her solo rehearsal with the devil himself Klaus which she had been having a panic attack about over the past few days.

Her date with Jesse had been okay, they'd gone out for lunch and he didn't even mind when she got two coffees. Their conversation had been pleasant and he was cute and all but they didn't have a real spark. He wasn't a sharer. She tried to taste some of his cake and he'd cut off a little piece to put on a side plate, thank god she'd resisted her urge to snatch a few of his chips earlier. All she could think about was her conversation with Nick the night before, how he'd helped her through everything.

Jesse was meant to help her get over Nick.

Because she couldn't have him.

She was never going to meet him, but when he'd talked about that girl he'd liked it made Caroline mad. It shouldn't have but it did, he'd never talked about dating before.

He'd always told her that he was never looking for anything serious.

That he took care of his needs like anyone but there wasn't any point in real dating.

There was no prince charming, there were no horses and no one got a happy ending; only a watered down idealism that's been forced upon us by society.

Yeah, romantic right?

So it spurred on her enthusiasm to make things work with Jesse, maybe they just had to go out a few more times to make it work? Order two deserts so she could try the vanilla?

She couldn't possibly have more chemistry with her laptop?

_Or Klaus_

Nope. Definitely not. Not after that last rehearsal, he'd clearly moved on from his brief infatuation if there was any at all to begin with…

So when her perfect sanctuary of a weekend looked like it was going to be ruined Caroline could safely say that she was more than mildly irritated.

"But I don't want to," she said flatly as Elena bustled about their room.

"But you love birthdays and birthday parties!" Elena said as she riffled through her closet to find something to wear tonight.

"Yeah but-" Caroline started but Elena turned to her with a frown.

"Stefan's going; you know he could use someone to be there with him."

"Seriously Elena!? The only reason he needs someone is because he doesn't need to see you and Damon making out! That kind of puts me in the same boat." She added and Elena wrinkled her nose at the reminder that Caroline had been with her boyfriend.

"Please Caroline I'm trying really hard to make it all work between them but Stefan's barely speaking to Damon and he only listens to you and it's his birthday and I don't want to be the one driving a wedge between two brothers!" Elena said rambling as she held up the same dress for the seventh time.

Caroline sighed as she stood up from her bed to stand behind her quickly unravelling friend.

"You'd be Stefan you know," she said taking away the shiny dress and Elena let her looking back at her through the mirror confused.

"You and Katherine," Caroline explains obviously looking through Elena's options waiting to be snapped at like all the other times she brought it up.

"This isn't about me and Katherine," She said sighing and Caroline shrugged.

"Of course not, but if it was. It be okay to want to talk to her Elena, it doesn't make you stupid or weak it actually makes you the bigger person."

"Maybe I shouldn't have to be the bigger person for once," She said crossing her arms and Caroline refrained from sighing.

"No you shouldn't, but she's trying Elena. She came all the way to Virginia for you to blow her off like twice?" Caroline asked trying to keep what Stefan called her judgmental voice from resurfacing.

"Four," she mumbled quietly frowning, "I don't think I've even said congratulations yet." She said honestly as she took whatever Caroline was handing to her to try on.

"No one's saying you should be the Brady Bunch but you've gotta give peace a chance Elena, or you'll regret it." Caroline said nodding and Elena rolled her eyes at the phrasing before turning to Caroline.

"Speaking of regrets-"

"If you want me to go to Damon's party you won't finish that question," she said holding up her hand silencing her friend's question. Elena only smiled and Caroline wondered if she'd ever push answers out of her if it didn't meet her own interests.

I mean look how far Caroline was in HER family drama?

"Yay I'll call Stefan,"

_Of course you will._

Even though she was very willing to just forget all about her rehearsal with Klaus she couldn't fail.

_Scholarship_

And part of her didn't want him to think she was afraid, even though she was. But she was going to suck it up and hold her tongue to whatever goading thing he said to her.

And in true Caroline Forbes style she was going to be annoyingly punctual.

The first thought she had when she opened the auditorium doors was that she had been late. She checked her phone and it told her she was five minutes early.

Why was he here already?

She walked through the room all be a bit awkwardly since he hadn't noticed her presence. He was lying in the middle of the stage looking up at the ceiling.

God could he been any weirder?

She walked to the front of the stage and stood still; even though she could see him she was still startled when he sat up suddenly.

"You're here fantastic!"

"Erm yes?" _Way to stay firm Caroline._

He motioned for her to join him with a big wave and smile and Caroline blinked with the mood whip lash he was giving her. Caroline walked slowly up the stairs wearily as she approached him, he seemed to notice her hesitance and he lifted a brow at her.

He patted the floor beside him and Caroline crossed her arms a foot away from him. He sighed before reaching behind himself and placing the takeaway cup in front of himself on the floor.

"Sit down," he told her when she didn't move. He tried to say it nicely but she glared at the command.

"Is that tea?" she asked instead and he refrained from rolling his eyes.

"Why would I get you something you don't like? Its coffee." He told her obviously sipping on his own very different looking cup. He leant backwards with one arm supporting him and peered up at her smiling.

"You said no coffee," she reminded him but she sat down on the floor in front of the cup sighing anyway.

"I'm trying to acquit myself love you're making it difficult." He told her raising both of his eyebrows in challenge and she scoffed.

"And you thought you could fix that with coffee?" she mumbled reaching for the cup and she watched his lips twitch into a wider smile at the action. She ignored the twist in her stomach that followed.

She sipped the coffee and let out an involuntary sigh at the taste, she quickly examined the cup. This was her favourite kind; it had the right amount of sugar and everything. Half a teaspoon and it was a shot and a half.

She tilted her head at him curiously in question but his face remained impassive as she deliberated.

There was another moment of silence as Caroline took another sip and he shot her a look reminiscent of a puppy as he waited for her to speak and she groaned.

"Fine," she pointed at him with her finger suddenly, "but only cause I'm thirsty." Caroline amended but it didn't deter his smile.

"Alright well should we start? We might be here a while seeing as you think I'm terrible," she told him somewhat bitterly because it's not like he'd actually apologised.

"We had a little spat love I'm over it," he told her dismissively lying back down on the stage.

"You embarrassed me in front of my entire class!" she exclaimed.

"You shut a door in my face!" he told her mirroring her outrage as he turned on his side.

She gave him an expectant look and he sighed sitting back up again. He lent forward to where Caroline's hand was reaching for her cup on the ground. He grabbed it gently and caught her gaze, "I am sorry I was harsh on you yesterday sweetheart."

He looked sincere so Caroline allowed it she smiled slightly as they stared at each other for a moment longer.

'_No wonder he almost won an Oscar'_ Caroline thought slightly flustered.

But she seemed to remember who he was a moment later and cleared her throat retracting her hand to pick up her almost empty cup.

"Well criticism is good. You know when it's constructive," she told him and it was clear she was joking now as she rolled her eyes clambering to her feet to put some much needed distance between them.

"Are you gonna help me have convincing hallucinations or what?" she asked him with an eyebrow raised at his spot still on the floor and he laughed standing up and brushing himself off.

She watched as his shirt moved with his hand as he wiped some of the dust off his shoulder from the floor. It had seemed odd to her at first to find him relaxing on the floor considering how snobbish he could be, but he hadn't seemed bothered. He really was comfortable on the stage; it was so different from movies. She wondered if he'd ever go back to theater.

Caroline noticed the necklaces on his neck again and realised he hadn't not worn them during any of their interactions. She looked away when he turned around not wanting to be caught staring.

Everything was turning out a lot like the first rehearsal, he was professional and charming. Except now the sexual tension was three times as thick without the other guy in the room.

Maybe Brady was right.

Surely that was why they kept brushing past each other; it was a monologue for Christ sakes. Mono meaning one! He could be standing several feet away from her if he desired. Hell he could be sitting in one of the chairs in the front row. But Caroline found herself not caring when his hands barely brushed hers as he explained how she should be holding her arms in the scene. She could feel his body heat as he stood behind her and his breath ghosting her skin as he spoke. Leaving a trail of goose bumps across her skin that made her want to shiver.

They didn't need to be that close did they?

Her heart was beating faster than it should have and she tried to remember the words to her monologue. She never forgot anything she read, she had a photographic memory. But then his hands were gone and he'd moved away breaking the moment until he did it all over again.

And she'd feel the same way all over again.

"How did you know how I took my coffee?" she asked him suddenly turning around and he blinked at her his tongue darting out of mouth to wet his lips before he responded with a shrug his face a mask of indifference.

"I didn't, it's just coffee."

She furrowed her brows, he was wrong of course. Coffee was never just coffee, she could taste the difference. She told him as much and his lips twitched into what looked like an annoyed smile before he sighed.

"Fine I asked Macbeth," he told her and she rolled her eyes.

"Brady," she corrected but she was smiling. It had been extremely thoughtful.

"Whatever, you think I remember people's names?" he asked her effectively changing the subject smirking and she scoffed at his returning arrogant behaviour before a knowing smile formed on her own face.

"You remembered my name," she told him remembering their-well second encounter at lunch when he'd introduced her over Elijah after meeting her at the grill.

"That I did," he told her unflinching. Just when she thought she might have finally embarrassed him…the frankness threw her off, the intent wasn't lost on her either.

She cleared her throat, great now she was embarrassed_. What happened to being bitchy towards him? You do not like him. _

"Oh shit," she said starring at her phone. "It's eight thirty."

"We certainly lost track of time," he told her with a smile but she frowned. Elena was going to kill her if she didn't show up to this party, probably Stefan too.

"No kidding," she said sarcastically.

"Got plans love?" he asked walking over towards the chair he'd draped his jacket over as he watched her distress with amusement. She flapped her arms about like a baby bird and he found it endearing as she paced.

"I have to go to this party," she said unenthused and he chuckled amused by the answer he hadn't been expecting.

"You sound thrilled, I thought people went to college for the parties?"

She rolled her eyes, "is that why you like doing these workshops," Caroline said making air quotes with her hand and he shrugged.

"It's part of it," he told her with a grin, "but I've yet to see any at this place. You lot are sufficiently boring. Not that I haven't had other propositions," he added thinking of all the girls who had done just that. Caroline scoffed muttering "gross" and he internally sighed at the fact she had no idea she was the reason he hadn't taken up any of those invitations.

Caroline rolled her eyes, "its cause breaks next week. You apparated into the week we college kids actually study." Caroline thought bitterly about how moving up their Macbeth rehearsals had messed with all her other studying. Before Klaus had shown up they were going to be doing this another week from now.

"Thought I'd lost my touch," he said mussing and she laughed.

"You are ridiculously cocky," she told him picking up her bag close by him where she'd dropped it on her way in.

"I know. So are you going to invite me to this party or not?" He said with a smirk on his lips and an expectant look in his eyes.

Caroline had no idea why she did exactly that.

**AN: Man this chapter was being bitchy to write gah haha anyway party next chapter and we will meet damon! Wonder how that will go...he he. More Klaus Caroline, she's totally warming up to him! And I'm thinking drunk Stefan, he'd be a total gut spiller. Anyways tell me what you think and review! I love reading all of them, you guys are amazing and they inspire me to update as fast as I do:)  
><strong>


	8. Chapter 8

It wasn't awkward like she thought it might have been, riding in Klaus' car because he insisted on driving her. She told him it was because he didn't want to be caught dead in hers.

Caroline ran her hands along the leather, "have you always had that stain?" She asked casually when they were a mile out of Mystic Falls.

He predictably clenched his hands on the leather looking at her with incredulity, "what? Where?!" She laughed trying to muffle the noise with her hand; she knew she'd failed when he visibly relaxed.

"Eyes on the road," she told him instead and he glared at her.

"Not funny love," he muttered doing as he was told and she scoffed.

"Because I'm sure you can't afford it," she mumbled staring out the window.

"No but Gloria's a classic," he told her running his hands along the steering wheel fondly and she snorted.

"Gloria? Her name is also a classic. I can't believe you name your cars," she told him laughing and he smiled.

"Cars?" he asked and she rolled her eyes at the correction.

"You're telling me you only have the one car?" she asked him disbelieving.

"Gloria's my favourite." He told her with a smirk.

"That didn't really answer my question," she told him not budging and he sighed.

"We're having a nice time I'd rather not get a lecture about my frivolity with money," he told with a knowing smile and she scoffed crossing her arms.

"Fine, I'm just going to think it's an obscene amount now, you've let my imagination run wild." She sang to him and he rolled his eyes.

"So you said this was a birthday party do we need to stop and pick something up?" he asked her changing the subject and she blinked at the politeness of it all before she burst out laughing.

He shot her an amused confused look before returning his attention to road "is that a no then?"

"My presence is enough," she told him seriously and it was his turn to chuckle.

"Oh you're being serious," he said after a moment and Caroline laughed again.

"Oh turn here," she said suddenly remembering he had no idea where he was going.

There were a lot of cars parked along the grass out the front of the boarding house and the party appeared to be in full swing.

"So you took me to a real party," he told her nodding his head impressed and she hit his shoulder at the comment as they walked up the steps.

"Shut up,"

They got about a quarter ways through the throng of people before they were surrounded, phones going off. People murmured to each other whilst others remained oblivious to the attention.

"What the," Caroline lost her footing in the suddenly stationary crowd and Klaus steadied her with his arm, he hardly seemed deterred by any of the attention.

He was used to it.

"Oh right-famous, I forgot."

He smirked at her and she realised she'd said it aloud to late.

"Yes some people actually like me love," he told her amused and she rolled her eyes.

"Whatever I'm going to need a drink," she muttered pushing her way through the people with Klaus following close behind her. She totally had not thought through bringing Klaus to a party in Mystic Falls.

"Caroline!"

"Here's someone I know," she shot back over her shoulder at Klaus and shivered when his low chuckle ghosted across her neck into her ears from his close proximity.

It was Elena, she looked frazzled. "Caroline thank god where have you been?"

"I'm not that late Lena it's a party," she said sighing, hoping to avoid the scolding since she showed up at all.

"Klaus?" Elena asked half incredulous and Klaus gave her a wave over Caroline's shoulder. Okay he was entirely to close now.

"Will you go check on Stefan? He's plastered." Elena told her and Caroline sighed.

Already?

"Where's the birthday boy?" Caroline asked reluctantly over the music, hopefully not with Stefan.

"Losing at cards in the den," Elena said rolling her eyes.

Caroline nodded, "I'll go check on Stef." She told Elena who smiled before telling her and Klaus to have a good time disappearing. She gave Caroline a look that said they would be discussing it later and she rolled her eyes.

She turned around and there were already some girls laughing and talking to Klaus, "come on I know where he keeps the good stuff."

Klaus nodded smiling at the girls before removing himself from them to follow Caroline. She stopped at a cabernet along one of the corridors and Klaus lent against the wall beside her, they were finally mostly alone.

"You've been here before," he observed as she riffled through the cupboard for a bottle of bourbon. It was expensive, Klaus raised an eyebrow at it and she smiled.

"Thank you Damon," she muttered before grabbing two glasses for her and Klaus.

"Yeah it's my friends Stefan's house," she told him with a shrug.

"If you're planning to stick around me we aren't going anywhere near that card game," she told him after swallowing a burning mouthful with a sigh.

He shot her amused look that was slightly confused, "if you don't like the host then why did you want to come?" he asked curiously. She'd seemed kind of tense ever since they'd actually entered the house after seeming so carefree in the car.

He thought at first it might have to do with the party or everyone staring. A lot of people couldn't handle it when they were around him, some of his family included hating meeting him out in public. Rebecca had been outraged when she was initially romantically linked with him when she first came to visit. And he and Caroline hadn't exactly had any interactions in public.

But he was starting to think that wasn't the case.

"She came for me!" A voice and body sprang from seemingly out of nowhere.

"Oh my god," Caroline muttered when she was propelled into the air frantically handing Klaus her drink and he took it amused before he looked on with slightly narrowed eyes when Caroline laughed unaffected by the actions.

She was now completely over a man's shoulder.

He could tell it wasn't Jesse he'd seen him before that day at the rehearsal, who the bloody hell was this?

"Stefan Salvatore put me down!" Caroline complained but he only changed his grip Klaus was a little worried she would fall.

"I thought you were bailing on me," he told her twirling her around laughing. Klaus frowned, she'd brought him to a party she had a date for?

"Turns out I've been ditched for… holy shit your Klaus Mikalson." Stefan said stopping his sentence seriously and Klaus smirked.

Wait Stefan.

He'd heard that name in countless emails.

Stefan was Caroline's best friend.

Purely platonic best friend.

"Klaus Stefan Stefan Klaus," Caroline said with a wave of her hand and it was all Klaus could see because she wasn't facing him anymore.

Stefan stuck out his hand a little star struck and a lot drunk.

"Hi mate," Klaus said with a more genuine smile now that he'd placed him in Caroline's life. He put down Caroline's drink to shake his hand and Stefan reciprocated the gesture with the hand that wasn't holding Caroline.

"Hey, you're a lot nicer than Care said." He told him with a grin and Klaus raised an eyebrow at the admission amused.

"STEFAN!" Caroline complained her pitch high, hitting his shoulder to shut up, "PUT ME DOWN!"

She was starting to get dizzy.

"Nope you were meant to be my date you owe me a dance." Stefan told her turning around to tell her like she merely behind him instead of on him. But she was still upside down on his shoulder so he only turned her towards Klaus.

Klaus smirked amused by Caroline's discomfort and flushed face as she held her top down looking upwards at him.

"Will you be okay for a bit?" she asked him huffing slightly from the effort.

He crouched slightly to get to her eye level, "I'll be fine, go on sweetheart. Before he drops you." He told her laughing slightly and she closed her eyes at the feeling of his breath on her face.

She thought she heard him say to save him a dance but Stefan was already propelling them to the throng of people, in her wobbled vision she saw Klaus being re-swarmed after being alone for a total of ten seconds. She frowned.

She was glad when she was back on her own two feet; it wasn't that she didn't trust Stefan's ability to hold her. I mean she knows he's strong at all but as he sways on his feet when they dance she knows she's lucky he hadn't dropped her before. Falling flat on her face in front of Klaus wasn't exactly on her to do list.

Or at all, falling on hard wood floors hurt.

"What's with you and Mr celebrity?" Stefan asked teasingly wasting no time at all and Caroline rolled her eyes.

"Don't even," she warned.

"What? Yesterday you hated the guy! I'm allowed to ask questions." He told her with a knowing grin and she scoffed.

"We could talk about your brother?" Caroline suggested with a smirk.

"Shut up and dance with me," he told her before picking her up and spinning her around, Caroline laughed and complied as they fell into an easy rhythm.

"Stefan I'm tired," she told him out of breath after a few more songs played.

"That's because you're not drunk enough," he told her as she dragged them out of the mass of dancing people.

"I'm not drunk at all," she clarified with a scoff.

"Exactly! Let's fix that," Stefan snagged two shots out a girl's hand who glared back at them. Caroline mouthed 'sorry' before continuing on her journey to a less claustrophobic space.

"No you don't," Caroline said snagging the second shot when Stefan went to drink that to, apparently forgetting his goal to get her drunk.

"Hey look there's Klaus!" Caroline winced at the loudness of his voice before she glared at Stefan. He was so dead in the morning.

Whether or not he remembered any of this.

He looked up from his seat on one of the lounges near the fire place to tip his glass in acknowledgment at them. Stefan swung his arm heavily around her and dragged them further into the room, clearly too late to leave now.

Caroline downed the shot in her hand when she noticed the three women who were all but hanging over Klaus, who was laughing at something one of them said. She tried not to notice how attractive all of them were; it wasn't like she was jealous.

"Caroline!" He called enthusiastically.

Yeah someone wasn't too far behind Stefan; his cheeks were slightly flushed as he gestured towards himself. "You mind love?" Klaus asked the red head beside him and she stiffened pulling a face realising Klaus wanted her to move before she huffed complying.

Klaus pulled Caroline down onto the couch beside him into the vacant spot once she was close enough; she yelped in surprise as she was torn from Stefan's grip and smiled tightly at the two brunettes she'd sandwiched out of Klaus. They glared at her like she was the Grinch that stole Christmas.

Stefan stood expectantly in front of them.

"Well where am I going to sit?" he asked and Caroline rolled her eyes stifling a laugh at Stefan's antics, he could be a handful when he was wasted. Good lord.

"Who are you?" one of them asked snottily glaring at Stefan expectantly.

"I'm the guy who owns the couch your asses are on," Stefan told them flatly and both Caroline and Klaus laughed out loud. They looked back at Klaus briefly hoping he'd say something before muttering to each other when he didn't. They left the room with one last withering glare at Caroline as Klaus tossed his arm over the couch behind her.

Stefan sat down beside her heavily, "only three girls? My illusion of you is shattered." Caroline said to Klaus sarcastically and he snorted.

"Please any illusions you had of me were gone when you referred to me as an Eskimo."

Caroline rolled her eyes remembering their first encounter, "does it smell like weed in here?" she said suddenly lifting her head into the air crinkling her nose.

Klaus chuckled, "yeah there were a group of guys in here earlier. I came here to get away for a minute; they were pretty cool. Those three were the only brave ones to follow." Klaus said gesturing to the other side of the room.

"Yeah stoners very scary," she said sarcastically.

"Parties are actually very easy to blend into," he told her honestly with a shrug. "Everyone's drunk or worse and nobody notices or cares." Caroline raised an eyebrow at that remembering their entrance.

"Okay not all the time," he relented with a smile at her.

"Maybe where you're from," Caroline said as she watched Stefan pour himself a glass of the bourbon she'd given Klaus out of the corner of her eye.

"Who gave you the nice stuff?" Stefan asked clearly forgetting where they'd met earlier and Klaus pointed to Caroline with a finger instantly.

"Way to sell me out," Caroline told Klaus dryly who smirked holding his hands up in a surrounding gesture at her glare.

"Guess who got bumped from the 'who to call when you're in a jam list," Caroline told him snippily and he made a mock wounded gesture to his heart in response.

"Don't worry its Damon's, drink all of his booze." Stefan muttered putting the glass to his lips. Caroline frowned snatching it away.

"HEY!"

"You've had enough," She told him using her business voice and Stefan frowned. "In fact it's time for water, have you eaten?" she asked and he groaned.

"Yes Mum,"

Caroline stood up only to feel a pair of arms snake around her waist. She was surprised to hear Klaus' voice in her ear as she was pulled back down to the couch.

"You can't leave again I've barely spent five minutes with you,"

Caroline shivered again from the proximity before she could even think of a response she spotted Elena walking past, "ELENA!" she called out and the girl stopped to take in the scene with risen brows. She internally groaned, oh the questions.

It would be worse than when they had lunch.

"Would you get Stefan some water for me?...Please" she added when her eyebrows only disappeared into her hairline at the question. Elena looked to an obviously drunk Stefan beside her and then back to Caroline where Klaus' arms were still around her.

"Sure," she told her with a smile before disappearing.

Caroline wormed her way out of his hold needing the distance; she hadn't nearly drunk enough to give into any of those kinds of feelings.

"So what?" she asked him expectantly and a little guarded taking a sip of the drink she'd confiscated from Stefan. Klaus leaned back into the sofa content she wasn't moving, his hands relaxed behind his head as he looked back at her.

"I just want to talk Caroline, is she always this distrusting?" he asked Stefan over her head on the couch who snorted loudly at the question.

"Thank you Stefan that was encouraging," she muttered elbowing him in the stomach.

"Here's your water," Elena said reappearing faster than Caroline thought possible placing the tall glass in front of Stefan with apprehension. The tension was evident between them but Caroline smiled at her friend when she sat down with them in spite of it.

"So what are we talking about?" Elena asked looking at Caroline with a knowing smile.

"I was just trying to get to know Caroline a little better," Klaus said with an easy smile at Caroline who looked away.

"Well what do you want to know? You have the two best people to answer and one of us is drunk." Elena said with a grin to which Caroline threw a murderous glare at in response, not that it deterred her.

"The first time me and Caroline got drunk she threw up all over my parents shoes," Elena said taking a sip out of her plastic cup.

What was this some kind of drinking game now?

"When we were in high school Caroline liked this guy so much she-"

"Stefan shut up and finish your water before I finish you," Caroline snapped with a tight promising grin. Stefan seemed to consider before he sipped some his water compliantly.

Klaus chuckled from beside her, "it's alright love. Every embarrassing thing I've done is splashed across a magazine."

"Ah not so glamorous all the time then," she told him sarcastically. Having seen some of his bad press he was supposedly hiding out in the boonies from. Mainly series' of sordid affairs, a few benders oh and then there was the paparazzi he supposedly punched.

"I've seen this picture of you where you're like in the middle of eating like this," Stefan told him with a laugh mimicking the gesture to which everyone laughed at besides Klaus.

A couple of hours passed and Klaus had nearly finished off the end of the bourbon with help from Elena, since Caroline decided she would drive. She was half lying on Stefan with her feet in Klaus' lap; Elena opted for leaning against the couch from the floor right in front of Caroline.

Caroline even ventured to say they were having fun. Especially when Klaus started telling them funny stories about parties he'd been to with other famous people he knew.

"So are you really dating Ruth Rayne?" Stefan asked Klaus who snorted at the question. The thought almost made him want to break out into hives.

"What she's totally hot!" he exclaimed outraged at his dismissal.

"Maybe when she's not talking," Klaus muttered to which both Caroline and Elena hit him for.

"Ouch tough crowd," he said rubbing his shoulder and leg respectively with a grumble from both women.

"Enough about me," Klaus said not wanting to have the whole rehash of 'who you've slept with in holly wood' that guy's always wanted to do when they met him. Especially when he was trying to get Caroline to like him.

"Yes Stefan tell us all about your love life," Caroline said doing a horrible impersonation of Klaus' accent and fluttering her eyes at him which made Elena laugh and Klaus splutter in indignation.

"I do NOT sound like that," he said dryly giving Caroline a stern stare to which she only laughed at.

"Well there's this girl in my sociology class I asked out the other day," he said with a shrug and Caroline sat up almost elbowing Klaus in the face as she twisted on the lounge.

"What?! No way! Who is she? What's she look like? What she say? Do I know her?"

"This is why I don't tell you things, it's like the Spanish inquisition." Stefan told her not quite pronouncing 'inquisition' properly in his inebriated state which made Caroline laugh.

"How about you Caroline how's Jesse?" Elena told her turning in her spot with a waggle of her eyebrows moving the conversation along. She knew Stefan wouldn't want to talk about a girl in front of her, lord knows they weren't going to discuss Damon.

Caroline rolled her eyes oblivious to the way Klaus stiffened his hand from the lazy movements he had begun across her leg a minute ago and she shrugged, "I don't know he's nice and all, polite, pretty, I mean you've seen his smile ...He's just kind of…I don't know boring? He agrees with everything I say and he doesn't go halves-ies" she said honestly, directing the last part to Elena who nodded in understanding. Stefan and Klaus threw each other a confused look over Caroline's head before shaking their own heads.

_Women._

Klaus took another large sip of his drink not exactly wanting to hear the conversation and he felt Elena's eyes on him.

"It's only cause your hung up on cyber boy," Stefan sung out.

"Cyber boy?" Klaus asked, because really he had someone else to compete with now?

"Oh my god Stefan! so not the time!" Caroline said turning bright red and Klaus turned his head in interest.

They weren't talking about him were they?

Elena rolled her eyes, "your still not mooning over you're pen pal are you? Honestly Caroline you can do better than a forty year old man from Australia with a beer gut."

Caroline groaned putting her face in her hands falling back onto Stefan's side, "we're just friends. Everybody stop!"

Klaus couldn't help the smile pulling on his lips at her reaction.

"Besides I think he's dating someone," Caroline added a little bitterly mumbling and Klaus frowned in confusion.

No he most certainly wasn't. He almost would have said something along those lines when Elena spoke up changing the conversation.

"Fine fine, let's talk about when you made up with Klaus. You were ready to kill him a couple of days ago," Elena reminded her of her constant whining about the man they were all sitting here laughing with now. Who came WITH Caroline.

"You looked like you were going to be sick this morning," Stefan said agreeing and Caroline stared at her friend's appalled.

"Since when did you two become over sharers!?"

They were looking at Klaus expectantly after her outburst undeterred and he blinked at the sudden attention a bit sheepishly since he'd deserved whatever Caroline had said about him.

"I apologised?" it came out as more of a question and they were still staring at him like they didn't believe him, like it would be unflappable for Caroline to accept his apology.

"I bribed her with coffee."

"You look satisfied now?" Caroline groaned in shocked outrage when both of her friends nodded accepting the answer and Klaus smirked.

"What did you lay a bunch out in a row like bread crumbs?" Stefan asked amused and Caroline hit him.

"He wasn't trying to trap me like an animal!" she defended trying to forget how easily she'd rolled over once the coffee had been present this afternoon.

"You're such a coffee addict crack whore,"

"ELENA GILBERT!" Caroline spluttered huffily when everyone else laughed loudly at the comment.

Oh she was so going down.

There was a loud crash coming from the other room and Elena swore and then grinned at Caroline's murderous expression, "got to go!" both she and Stefan went to get up but she waved him away. "I'm meant to be helping Damon anyway." She said on her feet.

"Wouldn't want to disappoint him," Stefan said as Elena walked out of the room.

"Stefan!" Caroline hit him upside the head.

"Ow what?" he complained at Caroline's judgy glare being cast at him.

"You can't keep taking it out Elena, it's been years now." She said gentler.

"Well he's my brother it shouldn't have an expiration date, not for her." he added because Elena had been the big love of his life.

'So far' Caroline would remind him.

"Oh." Klaus said aloud breaking the two out of their quiet conversation.

"Ohhhhh," he said louder and Caroline started laughing realising Klaus must have put together everything.

"Well I'm with you mate, bad form." Klaus told Stefan as he clinked their glasses together in comradely and Caroline rolled her eyes.

_Men._

"Is this what you two went off to gossip about before? I could have helped you know," Klaus asked sounding almost offended, "I've been slandered so many times I could have come up with some great zingers."

Caroline burst out into laughter again and the tinkling sound consumed the room making his head snap up at hers from the noise, "zingers? Really what are you a hundred?"

"Ha ha ha," he said sarcastically before looking away slightly red.

"Really? We can all laugh at Caroline and call her a coffee whore but I call you old and you're allowed to be all frosty?" Caroline asked him with an eyebrow raised and Klaus was saved from answering the trap of a question when a voice interrupted them.

"Well well so this is where the party's at." Caroline froze at his voice and internally groaned.

"Heyya Blondie haven't seen you all night, didn't even give me a birthday kiss." He said walking further into the room and she stiffened not answering.

"Ah so it's your birthday," Klaus deduced out loud before Stefan could tell Damon where he could shove it sensing Caroline's discomfort immediately at the man.

"Who the hell are you? Is that my good stuff?" Damon asked walking forward towards them. He picked up the now empty bottle of bourbon with a frown.

"Klaus, I came with Caroline." He said curtly but he stuck his hand out anyway for the man to shake and he did to Caroline's relief.

"Oh right, the guy who stole my thunder." Damon said with a smirk, "how'd you manage that?" he asked Caroline.

Klaus' jaw clenched.

"Trust me you could do better,"

"That's your favourite bottle right? I remember it." Caroline asked cutting off whatever Klaus was going to say gesturing to the bottle, she ignored the fear that had welled inside her ever since he'd picked it up.

She could hear Klaus practically growling under his breath.

The last thing they needed was a fight and she knew for sure how to shut him up and make him leave again.

"It's good stuff, we didn't waste any either." Caroline told him pointedly looking at him directly in the eye.

His jaw clenched stepping forwards, Stefan shot to his feet before anyone else did standing in front of Caroline protectively, "I think you should go, Before Elena comes back." He told him rather restrained as he glared at his brother.

The message was clear and Damon sighed running his hand through his hair more relaxed. He turned back to Caroline, "you should stop being a bitch and go see your mother." He told her flatly before he swiftly left the room.

There was a moment of silence before Stefan breathed out angrily.

"I'm going to kill him," he said seriously.

"I'll go with you," Klaus said in a similar tone getting to his feet a little wobbly as the alcohol rushed through him.

Caroline pulled on both their arms at the same time standing up. "No you won't, and no one's killing anyone. Especially not on their birthday." She amened like that would change their minds. Klaus stared at her in disbelief but she shot him a look that left little room for discussion.

He sighed, "That guy was an asshole. I see why you said no to cards." He told her and she laughed like he'd wanted her to and he smiled slightly that she looked a little more relaxed now.

"It's late do you want to go?" Caroline asked Klaus after a moment and he blinked, right they drove together. "Endless you want to-" She said misinterpreting his hesitation.

"No, nope, let's go," he told her quickly with a smile to which she rolled her eyes.

"Are you cool here? Not going to do something drunkenly stupid like pick a fight with your brother?" Caroline asked turning her head towards Stefan with a serious expression and a singular eyebrow raised.

He looked at her with mock offence before he exclaimed, "me? Never! Shame on you Caroline it's his birthday."

She hit him in the shoulder rolling her eyes, "alright smart ass call me tomorrow." Caroline told him giving him a hug to which he picked her up from the ground and spun her.

"Do I get one of those?" Klaus asked amused behind them when Stefan set her down and she scoffed.

"Nope, those things are earned buddy." She told him a finger pointed at his chest.

"Plus she weighs a tonn," Stefan said with a smirk dodging Caroline's fist that came right afterwards.

"And you," Stefan pointed at him now seriously, "no funny business with Caroline. It will take me five minutes to find you stalker style on the internet at any given location at any time of day."

"Well that's a little frightening," Klaus said with an amused chuckle before he and Stefan shook hands like old friends.

"Tell Elena I said goodbye," Caroline added to Stefan before her and Klaus slid out the front door relatively unnoticed.

"I can't believe I get to drive your car," Caroline said with a glint in her eye that made Klaus frown concerned as they approached it in the dark.

"Wait. What? No," Klaus said not really able to articulate what he wanted to.

"Klaus you can't even walk straight, you'll drive us into a ditch." Caroline told him dryly before opening the door and pushing him into the passenger side.

"It's a stick," he told her seriously as she got in the other side having finally relented and she snorted.

"I know I'm a girl not a duck Klaus." She told him with an eye roll. "And I find that stereotype offensive. I don't know if you've noticed Klaus but this is the country. We learn to drive when were like ten. And before that we start on tractors," she added turning towards him with a smirk and he groaned catching onto her sarcasm.

"I will never forgive you if you murder Gloria," he told her seriously and she scoffed.

It was only minutes when the car stopped and Klaus blinked confused, they weren't at Whitmore yet. They couldn't be. He wasn't that drunk. Did he fall asleep? He blinked looking outside the window to a suburban street.

"Where are we?" he asked turning to look at Caroline.

"My house." She said frankly before stepping out of the car and shutting the door. 

**AN: hey guys! Sorry to end it there he he hope you liked the chapter, I randomly wrote about the party and it became its own chapter! Thanks so much for all the reviews and the support, tell me what you thought about it. The next chapter will be up soon **


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: Quick note, there is over 100 reviews! I'm so stoked about how many people read this! So thanks for all the fav's/follows/reviews and encouragement you guys are awesome. I love all of the reviews and they always make me smile when I read them. **

"I assume the man on the couch belongs to you,"

Caroline looked up sheepishly at her mother from her place in the kitchen doorway, she'd been standing there awkwardly for a full minute before she'd spoken. She knew there was no way her mother hadn't noticed Klaus, she could see one of his feet poking out from the couch where she was standing herself.

"I almost shot him you know," her mother told her looking at her for the first time and Caroline sighed, even though it was kind of funny and terrifying. She hadn't thought about that last night.

"Then you'd have to get a new couch," Caroline replied just as flatly and she saw her mother roll her eyes.

Okay so she wasn't angry.

"You didn't tell me you were coming home," Liz said turning back away from Caroline to fiddle with the coffee cups as she poured some hot water.

Caroline shrugged venturing further into the room to sit at the island, if her mother wasn't going to ask about Klaus she wouldn't bring it up. "It was spur of the moment. We went to Damon's party last night; I was too tired to drive all the way back to Whitmore that late."

Her mother gave her a smile handing her a cup of coffee, "that was responsible." She said it like it was something she should say to fill the space rather than some form of praise and Caroline rolled her eyes.

"It's been known to happen," she told her taking a grateful sip of her coffee. The silence lingered and Caroline waited about a minute before she spoke impulsively.

She'd always hated silences.

"I'm sorry! For bringing someone over, I mean nothing happened but I didn't even check with you first. I knew you'd be working." Caroline said starting to ramble but was surprised to hear her mother laugh, actually laugh at her.

"Once I realised a robber hadn't decided to take off his shoes for a nap and I saw you asleep in your room I put the pieces together. Its fine Caroline, a heads up would have been nice but this will always be your home. I don't want you to feel like it isn't."

"Huh," she said in response not really having anything to say for once and they fell back into a more comfortable silence.

"So have you thought about what we talked about the other week?"

There goes the comfortable part of the silence.

Caroline refrained from sighing and pursed her lips together, "I have. I know you want me to, but I'm still undecided." She said honestly and her mother shook her head slightly.

"I don't want you to," Caroline looked up at her mother's blatant statement watching her put her coffee down. "But you might need to, for yourself. I'll support whatever decision you make Caroline, always." She told her and Caroline blinked.

Her words were frank but it was probably one of the most emotional conversation's they'd had in years. Caroline had no idea how to react at the supportive statement.

"Um well. Okay." She said finally nodding.

"Well I have to head in for work now," her mother said just as awkwardly.

Caroline looked up and nodded, "right sure. Have a good day" she told her with an honest smile which was returned. Her mother gathered her things but paused at the doorway.

"Thank you,"

Caroline's eyebrows furrowed, "for the necklace." She clarified before she turned and left down the hall.

Right.

Caroline was brought out of her stupor when she heard the front door slam shut.

Had she just had a pleasant conversation with her mother? She almost shuddered. Weirder things had happened hadn't they?

She heard a faint groan from the next room.

Like Klaus Mikalson sleeping on her couch for instance.

She blushed remembering last night. He was even more forward when he was drunk, until he wasn't. He'd been weirder than usual that's for sure.

Caroline started bustling around the kitchen as she began to make breakfast. She'd decided on making the hangover speciality. Because she liked Pancakes and Klaus was probably going to need them.

"Caroline?" Klaus called unsurely poking his head into the kitchen. He seemed relieved to find her standing there with her back turned away from him, he hadn't been a hundred percent sure of where he was. He looked at her appreciatively in her short pyjama shorts and singlet, she was even more attractive now than she hand been last night.

It probably had something to do with how much more skin he was being privy to.

She turned a spatula in hand, "good morning." She said brightly before clearing her throat and turning back towards the stove quickly. He looked down at himself and realised he wasn't wearing a shirt.

Right.

He remembered telling Caroline last night that he normally slept naked. He cringed at the thought slightly embarrassed oddly enough, not that it was the only thing to be worried about. At least he was wearing pants. Klaus vaguely recalled her telling him all flustered like that if he was going to sleep here he had to keep his clothes on.

Well he did mostly.

He smirked walking further into the kitchen behind her.

"Are you making me breakfast?" he teased from behind her and she stiffened realising his proximity.

She scoffed, "nope these are for me. Free loader." She said tossing a smirk over her shoulder to which he frowned.

"You're not even going to share? I thought you hated that?" he asked with a smirk and Caroline frowned before she made the connection. It was something she'd said last night amidst one of their many conversations with her friends.

"Just go sit down, and find a shirt." She added as an afterthought. She was going to burn herself if she was anymore distracted by him.

He was in fact exactly as he appeared on movie screens shirtless, probably better up close. She couldn't wait to tell Brady.

She ignored the feeling of him smirking at her from behind her turned back, "you don't like me like this?" he asked in mock hurt and Caroline mustered up enough annoyance to give him a pointed look.

"Who is holding the spatula? Do you want breakfast or not?" she asked with a raised eyebrow to which he smirked wider at.

"Yes mam," he muttered venturing back into the living room to find his discarded Henley. It was near his shoes by the couch. He took his time looking around the room this time and noticed Caroline grew up in a nice quaint little home.

Pictures on the mantle place included. It was nice, far different from the large homes he'd grown up in as a child, extravagant in décor but always lacking in anything personal. He remembered the summer he came home to find his mother had decided she liked that whole geometry craze. The entire house had been painted black and white with weird shapes peering on every wall in the opposing colour.

Besides the stiff awkward family photo hanging above the fireplace there had never been any pictures of him or his siblings growing up.

He grinned at a picture of Caroline in a revealing red cheerleading uniform next to Elena, they were holding an obnoxiously large trophy and they were both grinning. Klaus traced Caroline's face lightly with his finger, her true smile was something to behold.

He slipped the shirt over his head trying to figure out what to say to her about last night. He remembered nearly everything; well at least he hoped he did. He took the picture frame back with him into the kitchen.

"So when were you going to tell me?" he asked as he lazily walked back into the room and Caroline looked up puzzled as she rustled for some plates.

He put down the picture dramatically on the bench, "you were holding out on me." He told her before sitting on one of the stools. She rolled her eyes as she glanced at the picture.

"I was a cheerleader," she said blandly before she returned to putting the food on their plates.

Topped with stacks of bacon.

God as if he wasn't already too in to her.

_He knew she was a cheerleader in high school_; it had come up in one of their many email conversations about their lives. He swallowed the part of him that told him that it was wrong, that he was practically lying to her at this point. He licked his lips subconsciously before he cleared his throat. "Really I thought you two just liked holding pom poms." He told her sarcastically.

"I was head cheerleader," she clarified and he smiled at the correction.

"Of course you were," she would have bit his head off for that but it hadn't come out mean, it came out gentle. He was smiling.

Caroline cleared her throat when their eyes met turning to the kettle, "I would ask if you wanted coffee but I know how you feel about it." She told him with an eye roll as she poured herself another cup and placed their breakfast in front of him.

"I'm not nearly as against it as you paint me to be. I just don't think anyone should consume the amount of coffee you do." Caroline scoffed and he smirked.

"Do you have any tea?" he asked and she laughed, the full hearted kind that made his stomach knot and her face light up like it did in the cheerleading picture.

Like she was made of light.

"So no to the tea then?" he asked after she'd finished and she shrugged.

"There could possibly be a tea bag somewhere but I honestly have no idea. I get my coffee habits from my mother." Caroline explained before reaching for the maple syrup. Klaus watched in morbid fascination as she poured a disgusting amount over her food.

On the bacon and everything.

"You're going to die from a heart attack. At twenty." He told flatly her before bitting into his own bacon.

"Well I'll have gone doing what I love... " she told him theatrically, "Eating pancakes." She added seriously before taking an exaggerated bite of the maple soaked pancake.

"That or overdosing on caffeine," he muttered looking away from her face as she licked her lips to catch the fallen syrup. He swallowed.

He didn't know how he restrained himself from kissing her last night.

Even now was difficult.

He could safely say he had it bad for Caroline Forbes.

And that he had no idea what to do about it.

He was now the idiot in the rom com who'd spun a small secret into a giant complicated web. And he was going to fall flat on his face because of it. He'd need to buy an airport to run through soon.

"So last night was fun," Caroline began a little awkwardly but he smiled.

"Thank you for inviting me sweetheart, I enjoyed myself. Particularly your friend Stefan, he seemed like a good guy." Klaus said honestly as he reached to put a much more acceptable amount of syrup on his pancakes.

"Yeah Stefan's great," Caroline told him with a large smile.

"But I take it that's not genetic," Klaus said dryly remembering their short interaction with his brother. Klaus distinctively remembered wanting to tear his limbs off, he'd been so needlessly horrible to Caroline. It hadn't fazed her though, that alone had bothered him more.

"Oh you mean Damon," Caroline said nonchalantly as she stood up with her empty plate. How had she eaten so quickly?

"Why, does he have another asshole of a brother?" Klaus asked bluntly and Caroline rolled her eyes.

"Nope Damon holds the sole title. He's not normally that bad, he was just drunk and fighting with Stefan. As you probably gathered he's not too happy that he and Elena are dating." Caroline said with a shrug as she began to clean the dishes for something to do.

Should she really be telling Klaus this?

Oh well it's not like she'd know him much longer.

"He still shouldn't have spoken about you like that," Klaus pointed out with a frown at her reluctance of anger.

"Probably not," Caroline agreed and Klaus sighed. She clearly wasn't going to talk more about it with him.

"Do you remember what you said to me last night?" Caroline asked suddenly and Klaus froze at the unexpected question.

He cleared his throat a little nervously, "no?"

"You said you had something important to tell me…and then you fell asleep. It was after you talked yourself out of-well… you know." Caroline finished looking away.

Well THAT he remembered. He'd told her how beautiful she was and ended up talking himself out of kissing her, in front of her.

Smooth Mikalson.

He wanted to groan; instead he smiled a little sheepishly "yeah sorry about that."

"No don't be, I mean- not that I wouldn't- what I mean is… I thought it was nice you didn't want to try anything because you were drunk." She stuttered out finally with a shrug and a slight blush.

His smile was practically a grimace. Had HE said that to her?

That had SO not been why. He would have gladly taken any affection she would have shown him last night in a heartbeat. Especially since it looked like she might have reciprocated, if his conscience hadn't decided to make an appearance.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd called upon it. Usually he messed something up and he called someone who worked for him to fix it.

In the end it had been that pesky guilt eating him alive, knowing that whenever she found out she would never forgive him. It felt like a violation of trust. He didn't however remember almost spilling his guts about the whole thing before he passed out.

"But I assume you don't have anything to tell me," Caroline said with an awkward laugh at the end of her statement. It was clear by his confusion he didn't know what she was talking about.

"Nope nothing I can think of." He told her with his best acting smile, but he could feel it trying to falter despite himself.

He was going to a very special place in hell, he just knew it.

-0-

"And you're telling me nothing happened?" Elena asked her friend incredulously.

"What did you think was going to happen?" Caroline asked irritated.

"I was hoping that you were going to tell me you had hot celebrity sex with Klaus!" Elena told her obviously and Caroline rolled her eyes as she picked at her salad.

Klaus had left soon after breakfast telling her that he would see her next week for rehearsal.

"Well we didn't. He was gentamanly-sort of. I don't know, I thought he was going to kiss me and then he didn't. It's no big deal." Caroline grumbled taking another bite into a crouton. She'd been slightly offended that he'd rejected her after basically telling her he wanted her.

He'd claimed it was because he was drunk, but when they'd talked about it this morning he'd practically bolted out the door not ten minutes later.

Men were normally a lot simpler in her experiences, Klaus however proved to her once again he was practically an alien.

Was this some kind of famous person thing?

"He's been flirting with you since the moment he met you!" Elena countered huffing. "He stares at you like you make rainbows, I was there last night. He's not subtle."

Caroline snorted, "Well whatever I wasn't nearly drunk enough to have a one night stand with Klaus."

Elena rolled her eyes, "oh please stop pretending you're not attracted to him."

"Ohhh what are we talking about?"

Caroline wasn't sure if she was saved or not when Katherine slid in beside her and began picking fries off a glaring Elena's plate grinning.

"Damon's party," Caroline said flatly not wanting to elaborate.

"Was that where Klaus was? Thought your blonde hair looked familiar." Katherine said offhandedly as she reached to sip Caroline's soft drink.

"What are you talking about?" Elena asked swatting away her sisters wondering hand from her plate.

"I am his publicist it's my job to know when that annoying Brits face pops up anywhere. There were some pictures online. Pretty tame, no drugs and none of him smashed out of his mind." Katherine said leaning back in the booth.

"And you saw me?" Caroline asked a little worried. She didn't want her face plastered anywhere with Klaus'. Especially not just for anyone to see.

"Don't worry it's a little grainy, just you two coming in and there a couple of selfies with him and some bimbo's. You can't even see your face. Why? What were you afraid of surfacing?" Katherine asked slyly and Caroline rolled her eyes muttering; "nothing."

"So you took my advice and jumped Klaus then?" Katherine asked after a beat of silence and Caroline spluttered.

"KATHERINE! No! No I didn't, nothing happened. I barely know him." She clarified more for herself. Because she didn't, what did she really know about Klaus Mikalson? Nothing really, sure they'd spent a little time together and they had chemistry but she mostly knew OF him. It wasn't the same. She'd invited a virtual stranger/acquaintance to sleep on her couch.

"Alright touché," she said with a cat like grin that made Elena snicker.

"You know what's fun? When you guys argue and I can eat my lunch pretending I've never met either of you." Caroline mumbled stabbing her salad with her fork again for emphasis.

"So why wasn't I invited?" Katherine asked snippily in Elena's direction who rolled her eyes in return.

"You don't even know Damon." Elena said flatly.

"Lucky bitch," Caroline muttered and Katherine smirked before scowling at Elena who had not so subtly tried to kick Caroline under the table.

"Because you've never introduced me," Katherine clarified.

"I'm pretty sure you've met him before." Caroline mused remembering their conversation the other day at their impromptu sleepover.

Katherine waved her hand at her dismissively, "not in this capacity. I need to give the whole 'if you hurt my sister I have friends who can make you disappear speech' I'm really rather good at those."

"That's because you had actually friends like that when I was younger," Elena told with irritation.

"I think your quite scary all on your own," Caroline told Katherine easily who grinned.

"Thank you Caroline."

"Yes thank you Caroline," Elena reiterated far less friendly and she shrugged uncaring. It was about Damon after all.

"Well I'm going to check on Stefan, see if he's dead. You two have fun though." Caroline said standing up before Elena could vouch for his wellbeing, having stayed at the Salvatore's last night.

-0-

Caroline lent on the doorframe to Stefan's room taking in the amusing sight of her friend. His hair was flattened over his face in a very un Stefan like manner.

"You know what I was thinking; I was thinking we could exercise. A little running, maybe some yoga, you're always saying I should commit to the cause. It is a beautiful afternoon, you really shouldn't have the curtains closed Dracula."

"Go away before I kill you,"

"I think I liked you more last night," Caroline teased. "Seriously, it's like two in the afternoon. Why are you still this hung over?"

"Because I'm pretty sure I poisoned myself." He mumbled as he rolled on his bed.

"You mixed while I wasn't looking didn't you?" Caroline said her voice still light.

"I'm pretty sure the damage was done before you appeared last night." Stefan muttered and she frowned.

"I brought presents," she sang shaking a bottle of aspirin and Stefan shielded his head with a pillow, groaning in response at the noise and she grinned.

"If I have any more drugs I'll overdose." He muttered and she put it down on the bed side table.

"Maybe my headache would go away then," Stefan said in contemplation as he felt his bed shift from Caroline's weight.

"Right an overdose; that would fix you right up." She told him sarcastically and he instinctively knew she was grinning at him.

"Caroline please" he complained trying to silence her jokes. "I'm dying here." He realized that was possibly the worst thing he could have said entirely too late.

"Oh dying you say?" She said completely to chipper. He recognized that tone.

He was about to get a verbal ass kicking.

"When I was dying the other day I was dramatic." She pointed out to Stefan and he groaned again.

"We'd barely run anywhere," he defended uselessly. This was the last thing he wanted to be doing right now. "You're horrendously out of shape," he told her flatly because he was feeling bitter she was rubbing his hangover in his face.

She gasped in indignation, "and apparently you're a cadbury."

"Well at least I didn't have to drive because my date got drunk first," Stefan shot back and she started trying to move the pillow obstructing his face. His grip was vice though.

"Are you here to torture me? Did your night with Mr fabulous end that horribly?" There was a pause where he peered out underneath the pillow to squint at her expression, "he didn't hurt you or anything?" He narrowed his eyes and then winced at the pain it caused in his head.

Caroline scoffed, "no dad. I'm HERE because I need a ride home, and since I don't think you'll want to haul your ass back to campus I'm offering to drive your car back."

"With me inside?" He asked clarifying quietly and she rolled her eyes.

"Yes Stefan."

"Will you withhold your comments about my car belonging to circus clowns?" He asked pouting slightly his head turned toward where she was lying slightly up the head board beside him.

She turned to him with an easy grin "Not a chance,"

He really couldn't blame her, the sports car was tiny.

-0-

Klaus had no idea why he was going to try to talk to Elijah about this. They never really did the whole brotherly relationship thing. Klaus would screw something up and Elijah would be there to fix it, always.

He was dependable, but not in this way. Look who he was going to marry?

He quickly shook away the thought of calling Rebekah; she was half way around the world somewhere on a shoot. Besides she'd just be annoyed that it was the first she'd heard about it. Then it would become all about her. Or worse his trust issues.

He really didn't want to be psychologically analysed right now. He was doing a good enough job himself.

Elijah was surprised when Klaus stood waiting on the porch to the house he hadn't even stepped into during his stay in Virginia. He'd never wanted to be near Katherine if he could help it. Let alone in her house.

"Katherine's not here," he said a little unsurely as Klaus stood casually with his hands stuffed in his pockets. On closer inspection Elijah deduced he was agitated, that normally pointed towards Katherine.

Klaus scoffed, "Katherine finds me, not the other way around."

Elijah controlled the urge to roll his eyes but Klaus was already speaking, "are you going to let me in or what?" he snapped and Elijah sighed stepping away from the entry way.

"So this is where the devil spawn grew up," Klaus muttered taking in the spacious yet homey décor. There were pictures just like in Caroline's home, except this time they littered the walls. Some of Katherine and Elena younger with a baby boy and then there were some a little older with just each other. Smiling.

Klaus wasn't aware Katherine knew how to do that without looking like she was about to rip out your jugular and enjoy it. It's what made her such a good business woman.

"Huh, they don't look like they hate each other on film." Klaus noted and Elijah nodded joining him where he stood.

He looked at one with all three children, Katherine older. More jaded looking, a little like how she was now. But edgier, he assumed this was in the drug phase he knew little about. Katherine wasn't overly shy about her past, at least not with Elijah. Klaus had caught bits and pieces over the years but he was hardly one to judge. His life was littered with poor decision making skills, he'd just always moved back and on to the next thing.

He'd always had his acting to ground him, as odd as it sounded. But he didn't take anything more seriously than that. That's why he got booked for roles; no one cared how hard Klaus Mikalson partied. He never brought it to work.

He never merged the two worlds. He'd always been like that his whole life; with his family and the public eye. His numerous faces he wore. He was a master at compartmentalising. It's why all this stuff with Caroline was so hard for him.

He was terrified of the two bleeding together and it not being as right as it was separated.

He also noticed two other adults behind them in the photograph; they seemed normal enough looking parents. The whole childhood seemed that way by these pictures.

"Yes well they grew apart when their parent's died."

Klaus looked up at Elijah's admission. He didn't know that, how had that never come up? He was about to speak but Elijah continued.

"I don't know the details but they died in some kind of car accident."

Klaus nodded excepting the terse answer.

"Was there a reason for your visit Niklaus?" Elijah asked suddenly turning to him, waiting for whatever inevitable favour he would need.

Klaus sighed, unsure again of why he was here.

"Come on we'll have some tea," Klaus' lips quirked at the easy nature of his brothers words but nodded as he followed him through the house a little reluctantly and into the kitchen.

"Made yourself comfortable this week I see," Klaus said sitting at the table as he watched Elijah open a cupboard to find the tea.

"Yes well Katherine's not exactly inept in the kitchen. Despite her many skills." Elijah added as he pulled out two mugs. "Their brother eats practically everything microwavable."

"Yes Katherine's never really caught on that being able to use a toaster doesn't equate to actual cooking skills." Klaus said dryly remembering when he'd first moved to America and had to stay with his brother. Katherine was all but moved in herself at that point. He'd only been subjected to a few food disasters before he'd gone and stuck every take out menu in the city onto Elijah's fridge.

Elijah set the tea down in front of Klaus and stared at him expectantly.

"How did you know with Katherine? I mean she was practically a homeless ex junkie." Klaus said impulsively before he lost his nerve entirely to finish the conversation and bolt.

Elijah stared at him blankly, in all the scenarios that had been running through his mind he hadn't anticipated this. His self-proclaimed bachelor brother was asking him about relationships?

He must have hesitated to long because Klaus sighed standing up, "never mind."

"Wait Klaus, sit down. You obviously wanted to talk about this, what is this about?" Elijah asked as he watched Klaus sit back down slowly and stare intently at his tea as he stirred it.

"I may have done something,"

Elijah internally groaned at his brother's familiar words, granted he never sounded quite this guilty. What had he done now? He waited for him to elaborate.

"I kind of have this friend," He said again trying to find a way to word his predicament. "We've been talking for two years now…Online."

Elijah was a little startled by that information in itself, Klaus didn't have many friends. Not many he held onto at least.

"It was anonyms because you know," he cut off sighing taking a large sip of his tea and Elijah nodded in understanding. He meant his profession.

"But now it's not so-"

"Anonyms?" Elijah concluded when Klaus trailed off. "Do we have to worry about something being leaked to the media?" he asked trying to catch onto his predicament. He understood why he didn't want to go to Katherine with this, she'd skin him.

Emails were practically tangible ammunition.

Klaus shook his head, "no. I found out who she was." He simplified and Elijah furrowed his brows in confusion at his brother's current distress.

"You've met her actually. Caroline." He said finally and it felt like a weight had been lifted off him and he sighed. He had no idea how superheros did it. It wasn't just lying, Klaus was good at lying. He was an actor for Christ sakes. But what he'd been doing this week was so much harder.

"Well?" Klaus said finally irritated when Elijah didn't say anything besides choking on his tea and getting out his pocket square to mop up a few wayward drops spilled.

"Elena's friend?" Elijah clarified, Katherine's self-renounced baby sister. Well that wasn't good.

"Yes Elena's- How many Caroline's have you met this week?" Klaus snapped and Elijah exhaled.

"But you haven't told her," Elijah guessed and Klaus shook his head.

"You're asking me to decide this for you aren't you?" Elijah predicted after a moment of silence and knew he was right when Klaus turned away.

"I was ASKING for your advice big brother," Klaus spat sardonically. The whole conversation was becoming more uncomfortable for Klaus by the second.

"You don't want to lose the relationship," Elijah murmured observantly and Klaus scoffed.

"It's not a relationship."

"It's something considering its duration," Elijah pointed out, "Katherine mentioned you took an interest in her this week. I thought she was just another skirt you were chasing."

Klaus almost hissed, "Caroline's not like that." He said vehemently getting up to dispose of his mug and put some distance between his brother.

"Well you obviously care for her. Tell her." Elijah deduced standing up in time for Klaus to whip around.

"Just like that? Your meant to give me a long boring list of pro's and con's and about what's right! About how I shouldn't because I'd be in LA all the time, or traveling. Therefore I'd never get to see her again anyway. Or about how it could affect my career if she turned on me to the press." Klaus rattled off his fears angrily at Elijah who stood there saying nothing.

"Yes, because those are things you want me to say to you Niklaus. So you have someone or reason's to blame when you run away from this like a scared little child." Elijah told him his eyes narrowed slightly at Klaus' typical behaviour and Klaus seethed.

"I'm not running from anything!" he shouted glaring at Elijah because he had intentionally hit a nerve and he knew it.

"Then why are we having this conversation?" Elijah asked tiredly, he was tired of trying to reach out to his brother only for his hand to be slapped away. Even when it looked like Klaus might have actually been trying to reach out first for once.

"I have no idea," Klaus muttered defeated walking past Elijah and out of the Gilbert home. Elijah restrained himself from acting on his own typical behaviour to follow after him as the door slammed, echoing through the house.

.

.

**AN:/ Well that was a bit of a Debbie downer ending to the chapter, I thought someone should know before Caroline found out and I hadn't done any real Klaus x Elijah stuff yet so that was fun. I know a lot of you guys wanted to get the full Damon story. It'll happen I promise. **

**Sorry there wasn't a lot of action in this chapter, especially to the person who reviewed and said I don't do enough action, so whoops haha. And don't worry **_**onewonderfulgirl**_** Klaus will be putting down the shovel whether he wants to or not, wink wink wait for the next chapter ;) chapter 10 get excited.**

**Side note, sorry for taking a while I shall try and resume my swift updates if I can. Life was bound to get in the way **


	10. Chapter 10

"I'll be so glad when this is over and I can focus on the rest of my classes. That I'm probably failing, at least there's New York to look forward to at the end of the semester. You're going right?" Brady asked as he reached for his water bottle. Caroline looked up from the book she was highlighting briefly to answer. They were sitting outside in 'the dead zone.' Caroline having promised Brady she would help him with a particularly hard soliloquy he had in the second act. He'd said Klaus would have his ass if he couldn't remember it this afternoon.

"Nope your third year, remember?" she muttered before glancing back at her history notes she'd laid open to the side.

"But it's a second and third year unit, I know cause I-use-to-much-wax-in-my-hair Paul is going. He's second like you." Brady said stretching, ready to go again.

"Well I'm not going," she told him and he missed the finality when he continued on surprised.

"Why not? It's double credit! All we do is see some BROADWAY. Write a review, a case study. Easy peasy and did I mention NEW YORK? For like an entire week!" Brady said enthusiastically. He'd been pumped all semester about it. Danny had told him to shut up the last four times he'd brought it up.

"I know Brady," she sighed relenting as she closed her text book. "It's just not covered by my scholarship. I can't afford it on my own; I can barely afford what I have to cover myself." She admitted and Brady turned bright red.

"Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean to go on-"

She shook her head smiling at his sheepishness.

"It's fine Brady. It's actually why I'm taking this stupid history class; I thought I'd make up the time by having a full load this semester. Being in a full scale Shakespeare play at the same time has kind of tipped me into crazy land though." She added with a laugh and he nodded.

"Long gone was the day I was excited about getting the lead," he admitted and she scoffed.

"Oh Brady so modest, so tortured. You're really an artist now," Caroline drawled dramatically. "Just don't end up self-righteous like Klaus." She added with an eye roll to which Brady grinned at.

"Oh please, if you two throw anymore longing looks at each other he's going to push me out of the way and kiss you himself." Brady told her smirking and she laughed embarrassed, throwing a highlighter at him.

"God we haven't even done that scene yet!" Caroline said in realisation and he laughed.

"Well if I had to kiss a girl Caroline you're not awful option," he drawled.

"Geez thanks, why don't YOU just think about Klaus while it happens." She told him sarcastically in mock hurt and he snickered.

"I guess we both could." He suggested and she rolled her eyes.

"I can't believe we have that stupid mandatory exercise tonight," she told him changing the subject and he nodded agreeing.

It was the beginning of their semester break this week and the campus was deserted. He was meant to go down to the beach for a few days with Danny but couldn't because of Klaus still being here until the middle of the week.

"I'm missing dancing with the stars!" she told him dramatically lying across the grass and he rolled his eyes.

"What character did you get?" he asked and she sat up searching her bag for the slip of paper she'd received with her characters brief on it.

"I'm a 23 year old pregnant woman, second trimester" Caroline read the statement blandly and Brady smiled, "want to switch?" he asked sweetly and she laughed.

"It can't be that bad," she said but accepted the slip of paper he shoved in her face.

"Ohh exotic dancer, are you going to have daddy issues? What kind of dancer? Like one of those bachelors party ones? Or are we talking the classy Vegas kind?" Caroline asked amused wiggling her eyebrows.

He snatched it back, "I haven't decided." He told her snidely and she snorted.

"Well we should probably make our backgrounds up before we rock up to the dinner. You know Klaus is going to try and trip us any way he can. Why don't you go through it again first, start at _'It is the bloody business which informs thus to mine eyes.'" _Caroline suggested and Brady gave her a pointed glare.

"What?" she asked confused. "It's where you start lingering because you can't quite remember your lines."

He shook his head, "my scripts not in front of you yet you've been correcting me correctly for the past hour."

"I thought you wanted my help?" she asked more amused now when he looked annoyed.

"I do I just keep forgetting you only have to glance at something before it's permanently branded on your skull," he said with jealously.

Caroline looked up to give him an innocent grin, "you flatter me. If it makes you feel better I read it twice. Old English is still pretty old, even to me."

"I hate you,"

-0-

"Would you please check some stupid itinerary for this weekend? Your manager's driving me nuts. He's called me like six billion times. He says you're ignoring him."

Klaus didn't have to look up to know it was Katherine's tiny but menacing shadow glowering over him. How did she always find him?

He sighed, "I'm not ignoring him I'm simply screening his calls." Klaus told her with a grin to which she rolled her eyes at.

"Look Klaus this press tour is important. If you screw this up and I have to get into another screaming match with little miss perfects over bearing handler I will kill you myself. So whatever argument you had with Elijah that's got you in sulking mode, get over it." Katherine said with a flip of her hair as she roughly placed her I pad in front of him.

Klaus glared at her, "there's nothing wrong with me and Elijah." he muttered sliding open the lock screen regardless of his mood. He wasn't going to be stuck in a shitty hotel just because he was pissed at Elijah…and himself.

"Oh please he's organising his pocket squares by colour and size. Clearly you've done something," she gave him a glare when he snorted. "Look I am not reliving the thanksgiving of 2012. When you guys get into your petty girly fights, YOU'RE harder to manage and MY boyfriend starts colour coordinating all of our things. My shoes are all out of order Klaus! It took me forever to get dressed this morning." Katherine told him vehemently pointing to herself.

Also Elijah had refused to tell her whatever it was they were fighting about. He'd given her the old; "family business" line and then she'd yelled about how she was part of the family now waving about her engagement ring.

She so didn't have time for this, she was trying to plan her wedding and get her family to like her again!

"I'll call Daniel," Klaus said referring to his manager. "Don't worry I'll be on a plane and out of your hair in a couple of days." Klaus said waving her off with his hand hoping the conversation was over. Not mentioning anything about Elijah, not even the pocket squares.

"I can't wait for a whole Klaus free month," Katherine told him with a huff.

"You should throw a party," Klaus said blandly not looking at her.

"Oh I will, I'll invite every scorned woman in LA and we'll throw darts at a giant poster of you."

"Go ahead I could use the merchandise money." He told her looking up with a smirk. He was pleased to see two veins popping on her forehead.

-0-

_Tell me about New York_

**What makes you think I've been?**

Caroline rolled her eyes at the response. Nick had been everywhere; well almost he did say he's never been to Thailand to her once. She'd never thought his travel experience was fraudulent. He talked so passionately about each place, all the little things you discovered only when you immersed yourself in culture. Especially Europe, she'd always been fond of their late night conversations where he told her all about France and the art. He'd talk about the Louvre, the Hermitage and a billion other places Caroline had never heard of.

It was when she found out he loved art, even admitting to her he did some himself although he refused to send pictures. She'd badgered him for a week before she'd let that one go. It was up there on her desperate to know about Nick list though. It was right after what he looked like and right before his job.

Not that she'd judge on either but she'd guessed so many times now with nothing to show for it. Maybe he was unemployed? Doubtful.

_Time square is overwhelming I don't think I've ever been able to think less and in a way that's what's so amazing in itself. _

Caroline didn't even need to look through old emails to quote him. She had that written in her travel book right under 'New York.' She'd been remembering those particular words ever since Brady brought up New York this morning. She wasn't sure if she wanted him to say something dazzling or tell her how dirty it was to make her feel better about not going.

**You remember that? ;) I barely remember that.** Was his fast and witty response but she rolled her eyes prepared with her own, they were always prepared to hurl insults and tease one another. They barely used the delay of technology to assist them. Caroline often found herself replying fast and unthinkingly to almost everything he said.

_Don't do that, I'm allowed to be observant ;) _She replied referring almost word for word to how he'd reacted when she'd done the same to him a couple of weeks ago. About him knowing when she had class.

**Oh you got me.**

She smirked at his response grinning as she typed back.

_There's a first time for everything. I'd like to thank the academy and my childhood pet Bruno_

**Well let's not get ahead of ourselves love. Pigs aren't flying. **

Caroline scoffed at the comparison with her winning an argument.

_Unicorns aren't real. _She agreed instead playing along.

**The world hasn't achieved world peace. **

_The Jonas brothers haven't got back together_

**I wouldn't exactly put that in the con's pile**

_Well you should have let me finished my speech_

**I'm sure there was a thrilling tail of the adventures of Bruno. The puppy?**

_Crazy Crab. I wasn't allowed a real pet growing up. _She clarified before setting down her phone to pick out an outfit to wear tonight.

**You named a crab Bruno?**

That was a very quick response; she rolled her eyes checking it. She was going to hear about this for a very long time.

_He had a very masculine shell; I didn't want to give him an identity crisis. _Caroline typed out her defence refocussing on her task. She decided on some comfy flats and a nice loose dress to hide her baby bump. She wasn't actually going to wear one, she wasn't THAT far along in her imaginary pregnancy scenario. Besides if she was having an imaginary baby it was going to be small!

**Wouldn't have wanted that. I hear crab therapy is very expensive. Pray tell what fate did Bruno fall to?**

Caroline smiled until she frowned at the end of the message and she sighed.

_I may have taken him out of his tank when I wasn't supposed to. I wanted him to have an authentic beach experience, it seemed important at the time I'd been reading about habitats at school. That animal's could die if they were only held in captivity. My dad got so mad at the sand I brought into the kitchen and took him away._

Caroline left out the end to the story frowning at the memory. She'd cried for days asking for him back.

**I'm sorry sweetheart. I'm sure he'd lived a good life with you as his owner.**

Caroline smiled at the message welcoming to warmth it filled her with. _We had some fun times me and Bruno. He never could win a race though_

**Imagine that. **Nick replied moving back to the lighter tone they had begun the conversation on.

Caroline sighed checking the time; she had to go in a few minutes.

_I have to go. I have an acting exercise to get to. Klaus is making us go to a restaurant in complete character. I hope we don't sit near each other; he's been acting all celebrity weird since the weekend. I'm starting to think those people drink different water..._

She was almost ready when she got a short reply grabbing her purse. **Maybe it's the cool aid**

Caroline laughed, _Maybe. I'll message you when I'm bored. You can be the absent fiancé to my Mary Walters if you like_

**Why am I absent?**

_You're a race car driver, your competing in race in Europe this week. I'm crossing my fingers for you, you've been a bit lacklustre performance wise lately _Caroline joked, but it was the background story she would be running with that she made up with Brady's help earlier. She laughed at his response, apparently fine with playing along.

**Ouch, maybe I'm worried about my beautiful pregnant wife at home?  
><strong>  
><em>I never realised he was such a charmer, no wonder I'm knocked up.<em>

**Obviously not as lacklustre as you thought ;) Have fun, but not too much; precious cargo and all.**

Caroline arrived at the semi fancy restaurant fifteen minutes later and spotted Brady alone at a table. She steeled herself for a moment before she walked through the door. Remembering everything she'd learned about pregnancy over the past five hours and her character.

She greeted Brady without even a hint of cracking up. That alone should have awarded her some kind of medal. He was wearing a tight white v neck t-shirt and a pair of dark wash jeans. She noticed his hair was higher off his face, like a messier versions of Stefan's.

It was far different from the introverted look he normally donned. She wanted to tell him he looked good but remembered _she'd never met him before_.

"Hello?" Caroline opted shyly, "do you mind if I sit with you?"

Brady gave her a cocky smile as he gestured across the table. She bit her lip smiling but kept her character in place. She'd decided she was a timid trophy wife, a big house and an absent fiancé. She went out to eat by herself because she was a little lonely.

'_Poor Mary.'_ Caroline thought internally at the somewhat bleak back story she was developing.

"I'm Corey," he told her giving her his hand across the table. She accepted meekly and introduced herself.

"What's a pretty woman like you doing eating alone?" he asked his head tilted to the side, his eyes mischievous. Caroline suddenly wondered if he'd gotten some pointers from Klaus by the action and she blinked nervously laughing.

"I'm technically eating for two," she gestured getting the whole pregnancy thing out of the way. It was a good way to rebuff him also.

"Congratulations," he told her with a charming smile. They talked for a while and Caroline suddenly wondered why she'd never realised Brady could act. Like _really_ act.

Caroline tried not to tense when Klaus approached their table and sat down conducting pleasantries. He placed his phone that he'd just replied to a message on, on the table in front of him. She had to admit that the exercise hadn't been stupid at all; it was kind of rewarding to lie to a waiter as she grilled them about the menu.

Caroline had been a little crazy with the google. But no one did research like Caroline Forbes.

"Yes but are the tomatoes fresh **fresh**? Like cut fresh? I'm growing a human being here. No, **no **feta." She corrected snippily to the young girl who was staring at Klaus at Brady blatantly.

Klaus smirked at the entire exchange and Caroline focused on not returning his smile. She still felt determined to prove to Klaus that she could act, especially since she had barely spoken to him since their awkward morning-after after Damon's. That really shouldn't have been awkward at all considering nothing happened.

Whatever, she so didn't care. He was leaving in two days anyway, never to be seen or heard from again.

He could be as weird and hot and cold as he liked.

It just wouldn't be with her anymore.

Brady was talking again and Caroline tried to focus on that even as Klaus joined the conversation conversing somewhat intently towards him. Both their shoulders were tensed as they spoke, leaning forward. Caroline had to hand it to Brady when his cocky smile didn't falter as he talked casually with Klaus. They were doing that thing all guys did when they met and basically had a pissing contest. It was a pretty intense one since Klaus was well Klaus and Brady had basically adopted his persona to create his own character.

She wondered with a snort whether Klaus had realised Brady had done that. Or that in doing so Brady had basically compared him to a stripper.

Their food arrived and Caroline dug in ravenous as her character demanded. She restrained herself from picking off of Brady's plate. That was something she herself would do. Mary had more class than to steal chips.

Maybe she could blame the hormones?

She wondered if her thoughts were becoming outwardly known as Brady shot her a knowing look with an eyebrow raised. She should have sat with talentless to much gel Paul.

Caroline gave into her impulse and she accidently knocked Klaus' arm and therefore his wine all over him in the process. She lept up stuttering out apologies timidly secretly thinking it served him right for basically waving it in front of her fake pregnant self for the past fifteen minutes.

She got it she couldn't drink the stupid wine…well now neither could he…whoops.

He excused himself and Brady snorted at the retreating figure in amusement. Caroline rolled her eyes at him still trying to look bashful for her error muttering about how clumsy she was.

Since Caroline was finished with her pile of food she found the opportunity to text Nick about her dinner.

_Hey honey, how was your day? I'm having dinner with some very nice men I just met _

Caroline giggled at her own joke as she waited for a reply. She got bored as she watched Brady eat his steak like a gross person as he mumbled out, "who are you texting?" with his mouth full.

"My fiancé," she told him with her best Miss Mystic Falls smile and she watched his mouth tilt upwards into a knowing smirk that looked more like Brady. She filed that away for later before she settled on messaging Nick again.

_Don't be jealous neither have a trophy as big as my head, which as you know is big part of our loving functioning relationship._

Caroline heard something beep for the second time and looked to see Klaus' phone on the table. 'I guess he left it here,' she turned in her seat to see him talking to some of the other students a lot cleaner than when he left. She shrugged turning back to her phone_._

_Well maybe one of them has a trophy; I'm not sure how big it is_

Caroline laughed at how that sounded and emailed back straight afterwards.

_Wait that's not what I meant_

"God someone's popular," Brady muttered as he took a big swig of his drink referring to Klaus' phone that was constantly shaking against the table.

Caroline tilted her head agreeing but not focusing as she looked at her phone.

_Seriously? Do I have to send nudes to get your attention?_

_I'm not even sure how I'd fake the belly… _

_I can't even get any coffee with my desert, who am I meant to complain to if not you?_

Caroline saw Klaus' phone buzz two or three more times the screen a light, she leaned over to see who'd been texting him incessantly and was encouraged by Brady. Well _Corey. _

"Is it a girl?" he asked wiggling his eyebrows suggestively and Caroline frowned.

It just said he had six pending emails from Care- it cut off.

She looked down at her phone and then back at the little bubble of a message that seemed to be daring her.

Caroline felt her curiosity spinning inside of her as she impulsively emailed Nick two more times with only full stops as the message. Klaus' phone beeped twice more at the exact moment she sent them and then told her there were eight messages waiting.

Caroline dropped her phone like it burnt her.

Oh my god.

That couldn't be right. It wasn't right.

"You okay Mary?" Brady asked her concerned, his head tilted.

No Mary certainly wasn't.

Her fake fiancé was possibly Klaus Mikalson.

Klaus couldn't be Nick that was ridiculous. He would have told her, he would have said something.

She would have known.

Oh my god.

Caroline felt herself becoming pale at the possibility. Brady asked her if she was feeling okay again and she shook her head. "I'm fine, it's probably just the morning sickness."

_I'm probably just delusional._ Was what she wanted to say to him. She needed to call Stefan so he could calm her like he always did and tell her she wasn't being crazy or that she was.

Before she had time to process her latest crazy Caroline theory he was back at the table full of apologies. Caroline tensed when he picked up his phone, barely hearing Brady's joke about his clingy girlfriend. She stared at Klaus her eyes not moving from his face as she tried to determine the truth from his reaction.

He was tense as he checked his phone and when his eyes looked up to be trapped in Caroline's unwavering gaze he swallowed deeply and she knew she was right.

"Oh my god," she whispered looking away from his expression which was suddenly morphing into one of guilt and similar horror she was sure was on hers.

"Oh my god its true isn't it? You're him?" She was still whispering not able to look at his face to hear him confirm her question.

"Caroline love I'm s-," He began to say but she cut him off.

"Oh my god!" she shouted louder accusingly before shaking her head in disbelief abruptly standing up. This couldn't be happening, all this time.

He clearly knew about it to. God and he'd just played along.

Letting her think.

They'd TALKED about him this week!

She felt sick.

"Caroline wait you don't understand-" he said desperately his voice more strained than she'd ever heard it. He grabbed her arm and she yanked it away from him like he'd burnt her.

"DON'T. Don't you dare touch me, whoever you are!" she spat loudly and she suddenly realised they had the attention of nearly the whole restaurant. Caroline cleared her throat drying an angry tear that had escaped her eye with her hand.

Before taking a shaky breath as she collected her purse, "must be the hormones!" she called out before she hurried through the restaurant and out through the door ignoring the image of Klaus' hurt expression as she ripped herself from his grasp.

What the hell just happened?

One minute he was cleaning wine off his pants and then talking to a poorly constructed character of an accountant. The next he was checking his emails and then Caroline knew.

She **knew.**

He'd left his phone on the table like an imbecile and now suddenly Caroline knew.

'_So much for being a great actor.'_

His expression had crumbled under her consuming gaze in seconds and whatever guilt or regret he'd shown her on his face had signed his own death warrant.

_She'd been so hurt._

The next feeling Klaus had twisted his insides painfully. He'd never felt the dread that filled him before as he watched her back leave the restaurant. He might have just lost her forever.

It took him all of three seconds to realise there was no way in hell he was letting that happen.

It was another six seconds before he bolted up from the table to chase after her into the night.

.

.

**AN/ So I'm nervous about this chapter, for obvious reasons. I hope you guys liked it, I was going to put the confrontation in but it would have been way to long. Let me know what you thought as always**


	11. Chapter 11

"Oh my god what happened to your face?!"

Klaus didn't turn to look at Katherine. He so wasn't in the mood.

"Who did you fight brother?"

Oh great Elijah was here too. Couldn't a man do his day drinking in peace? He knew he couldn't hide in the smallest town known to mankind. Who was he kidding? He couldn't really hide from Katherine anywhere.

"The razor executives are going to have my ass!" she shouted and Klaus winced at the noise. The press tour was the last thing on his mind right now.

"What I think Katherine was trying to say is are you alright?" Elijah said softly and Klaus blinked, hadn't Elijah been ignoring him?

"No. No it wasn't! Please tell me it's not broken!" Katherine said fluttering closer to him to get a better look. He hissed when she poked it with her finger. Elijah's hand enclosed over hers pulling it away. He gave her a stern look to which she sighed at.

"It doesn't appear to be broken," Elijah said with a nod.

"Well which hick hit you?" Katherine said using Klaus' own words sighing exaggeratedly as she sat beside him at the bar.

"Go away," Klaus said vehemently and Katherine didn't flinch.

In fact she caught a rather nervous looking Matt by the eye and smiled when he tried to walk away. Katherine noticed the bloody tea towel beside Klaus that had some melting ice atop of it. Well someone had to have offered that…

"Oh Matty Blue Blue," Katherine sang and he sighed.

"What?"

"Who am I hitting in the face for hitting Klaus in the face?" she asked expectantly and Klaus suddenly looked less like a drinking zombie as he sprang to life.

"I will give you a three hundred dollar tip if you shut the hell up and walk away" he told the young bartender who glared at him in response.

"I don't even know why he hit you, besides half the grill saw. I'd be surprised if everyone's grandma didn't know yet." Matt told him with a shrug ignoring the glare he sent him mumbling about not getting a tip at all now.

"I'm waiting Matthew; don't make me cause a second scene inside this wonderful family establishment." Katherine told him icily and Matt swallowed.

Now Katherine he was definitely scared of.

He sighed, "I don't know I was out back when Stefan hit him, by the time I got here he was leaving." With that Matt mumbled about getting back to work before he disappeared into the other side of the restaurant.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Katherine cried shrilly making Klaus wince, he wasn't positive she wouldn't add to the growing bruise on his face.

Klaus glared, "did you miss the part where he hit ME in the face?"

"You reek of guilt! Stefan Salvatore wouldn't have hit you unprovoked. He's a nice guy." Katherine said accusingly through narrowed eyes.

"Yeah yeah Stefan's a freaking superhero," Klaus muttered ignoring her completely.

He heard Elijah sigh nosily to his left and knew he was busted. "I take it you told Miss Forbes then?"

**-0-**

"_Caroline wait!" she could hear Klaus calling out behind her but she kept her resolve strong as she fiddled with her car keys. Once she heard the familiar click of her doors opening she yanked open her door with excessive force. All she wanted was for this horrible night to be over._

_She turned back to see him almost get run over by a passing car in his endeavour to cross the road to her. She hated that she breathed a sigh of relief when it didn't hit him._

_What was wrong with her?_

"_Caroline!" he was closer now, she turned back towards her door but it shut forcefully under her hands. She whirled around with a glare to face him._

"_Really!? You want to do this now?!" She spat not even able to look at him properly before she tried to open her door again. It crumbled under his weight and she sighed angrily, his form was now looming over her as he leant against her door._

"_You're not giving me the impression that you'd discuss this with me later," he told her and had the nerve to look frustrated._

_At her!?_

"_Your right let's do this never," she told him with a glare, her hand still on her cars handle, regardless of whether she could open the door or not. He sighed, his frustration seeping through and she said nothing; she was to hurt and confused by the revelation. Caroline fought tears, her eyes welling angrily even as she tried to will them out of existence. _

_She felt the fight leave her so she did the opposite._

_Flight. She couldn't do this right now, she was too angry, confused. She didn't even know what to think, how did anyone process this kind of news?_

"_So that's it?" He called out to her and she ignored him. "No explanation?! You're not even going to let me talk to you? You're just going to walk away from me!?" he shouted loudly and Caroline stopped in her tracks turning around her eyes ablaze._

"_Alright fine go on, explain it to me Klaus! Explain this to me in a way that's going to make me feel something different than what I'm feeling right now." A traitor tear fell down at her angry words and Klaus felt his throat tightened at the sight of it._

_He hesitated._

_Klaus had seen Caroline annoyed, angry and even upset when he'd picked on her during that group rehearsal when he'd been jealous of that Jesse guy. It was nothing compared to the plethora of emotions flickering across her face right now._

_He'd never felt so ashamed to have hurt another person in his life. It didn't even compare to the time he last felt true remorse. And he'd pushed his sister off a horse breaking one of her arm in the process._

_He couldn't make any of it sound better with flowery words, no explanation he gave would end with her not walking away from him. He couldn't smile and make the problem go away. He'd done this to her._

_He was making her cry._

_She was going to turn away and leave him. The last thing he would see in her eyes would be tears and anger. Hatred, she hated him. _

"_You are a coward and a liar!" she spat at him before turning back around and continuing on her way down the dark street. She had no idea where she was going. Only that she couldn't be here any longer, her chest felt tight, like she'd been crying hysterically and couldn't breathe anymore. _

_It felt like she was suffocating._

_One of the best things in her life was a lie._

_Her safety net._

_Everything sprung forward in her mind, pushing painfully together. She scoured her mind for their first meeting, and then their second. There interactions. How did she not know? How did he keep this from her for over a week? How long had he known?_

_How long had he pretended?_

_Klaus' strained but clear words broke through her bubble as her head snapped up to him in shock._

"_I never lied to you!" _

_Klaus didn't believe he'd just shouted that, or that it had sounded so angry. Elijah words were goading him in the back of his mind. He wasn't afraid, he wasn't a coward. A different, older voice started swirling around in his head but he shook it away, the years of practice faltering slightly from his current emotional stress. His wall cracking slightly as a familiar sense of helplessness washed over him._

_Caroline shook her head scoffing at his words as she turned away again._

"_Stop walking away from me!" He roared impulsively. He couldn't let her leave, not when he knew she wouldn't come back._

"_I don't know where you're standing Klaus but this" she gestured around them with her hand, "right here is a lie, a big one…" she stepped closer to him closing the large gap she created as her words became louder. "I never lied to you! I trusted you, I trusted you with everything!...Everything about me." Her voice cracked as she waited. _

"_Was anything you told me real?" she whispered._

_She waited for him to say something, anything, but all he did was stare at her. _

_Blinking._

_She waited for the explanation that didn't come._

"_Well?" she asked hoarsely._

-0-

"Get up,"

Caroline blinked trying not ignore the persist voice that was ruining her slumber. She hid further under her blankets, immersing herself completely as she groaned. It wasn't like she'd gotten any sleep anyway.

Last night seemed to be playing on a continuous loop through her head like a twisted version of Groundhog Day. Taunting her.

"Leave me alone," she mumbled when she felt someone try and pry the covers off her body.

"It's four in the afternoon Caroline!" the persistent voice complained.

She groaned when she was suddenly colder, the covers gone.

"Why didn't you tell me you weren't wearing pants?" Stefan suddenly groaned and Caroline allowed a small smile to grace her face before she rolled over on her bed squishing her face back into her pillow. Her blue boy legged underwear visible for him to see.

"Why didn't you listen when I told you to go away?" she mumbled trying to push further into the mattress.

"Because I'm your best friend we don't go away. It's why I'm the best, it's right there in the title Caroline." Stefan told her throwing one of sheets back over her.

"Don't tell Elena that," Caroline muffled into her pillow and she faintly heard him scoff.

"Seriously though, you told me we had to hang out in the afternoon ON campus because of your rehearsals. I drive all the way here and you're asleep?" he questioned and she felt the bed shift with his weight. Oh crap, she'd completely forgotten about that.

"Stefan I can't do this right now," she pleaded her voice soft and she felt her friend still beside her.

"What's wrong?" he asked softly moving away the hair that was covering her face. It was slightly damp from newly forming tears. "What happened to you?"

Then she'd cried. Why did this hurt so much? This shouldn't hurt this much. But she couldn't help it as it all started tumbling out through her sobs. The tightening in her chest was back and it only pulled her right back there. To that painful moment when everything had changed.

"I'll kill him," Stefan promised after she'd finally calmed down. They were just lying there now, Caroline muttering a soft apology about ruining his shirt with her tears.

She sniffed, "that's thoughtful…pretty difficult thought. Someone's going to notice if he goes missing." She added laughing a little bitterly.

She couldn't believe Nick was Klaus. The man she'd told both incredibly intimate and incredibly stupid things to was Klaus Mikalson.

Klaus freaking Mikalson.

She knew everything about Klaus Mikalson.

Oh my god she was the fourteen year old version of herself except he wasn't Johnny Dep.

Well she obviously didn't know as much as she thought. She thought she knew everything about Nick. His favourite colour, his hobbies, his likes, his dislikes, his family.

Klaus was completely different, wasn't he?

That's what hurt the most. She felt cheated, cat fished.

She thought Nick and her had this open and honest relationship. One that she'd clung onto, one that had helped her pick herself back up. An escape.

Nick wasn't even his name.

He'd lied about his name.

How little did she mean to him if he didn't trust her enough to reveal himself to her?

To talk to her as if she were a stranger rather than tell her.

"Oh my god, you basically told him I was like in love with him!" Caroline said suddenly hitting Stefan in the arm so hard he almost fell off the bed.

"Excuse me?" he said incredulously rubbing his arm.

"Oh you know when you were plastered and told Klaus all about my cyber crush?!" Caroline said putting her hands over her face. "Oh my god I'm a joke. I'm this big joke that everyone should be laughing at."

"You're not a joke Care," Stefan told her gently but she just shook her head. Pushing it further into her knees that she'd gathered together, making her as small as possible.

-0-

"Elijah tell me what's going on, or so help me god I will blow my nose into every one of your pocket scarves!" Katherine snapped and he winced before sighing.

"Niklaus?"

"It doesn't matter. She reacted poorly, as you probably expected brother. The only woman who really knows me wishes she didn't. Better yet she thinks I'm liar, so if you'll excuse me I'm not exactly in the mood to rehash the details." Klaus swung his legs off of the bar stool and found his feet shakily.

"Now if you'll excuse me I have a rehearsal to get to," Klaus looked lazily at his watch smirking back up at his brother. "I'm only a couple hours late, shouldn't keep my trees waiting!" He called out behind himself, chuckling at his own joke as he left the Grill.

"Did he just take that glass with him?" Matt asked exasperatedly behind them after a moment.

"What does this have to with Caroline? MY Caroline?" Katherine said not wasting a moment to round viciously on her fiancé, Klaus forgotten.

"You know what, never mind he can keep it." Matt said nodding to himself before he made himself scarce again.

"Elijah Mikalson, answer me or you will never see what's under these clothes ever again!"

Elijah gulped when a few heads turned towards the arguing couple. He sighed, when would he stop cleaning up his brother's messes?

"What? I've told you everything I know," Elijah said when Katherine stopped him from entering the house with a perfectly manicured finger twenty excruciating and shouting filled minutes later.

"I know, but you're not coming in. You're going to get everything on a list I'm about to write, then you're going to bring it back here and then you're going to find another place to sleep tonight." She told him with a frightful smile.

"But-"

He cut himself off at her expression, "Oh and when I write chocolate I mean every single thing available covered in chocolate. And I want RED M&M's, there Caroline's favourite."

"Yes mam,"

She smirked at his resigned acceptance before she walked through the doors of her childhood home slamming it in his face. She'd let him stew there for a while whilst she called Elena.

-0-

"Why is there half of a supermarket isle in here?" Elena asked with a risen brow.

"Is this your new plan, buy my love with-are those chocolate covered pineapple lumps?"Elena cut herself off as she sprung to the packet. She hadn't seen these in ages.

"I don't know probably, my man doesn't go half way when sex is on the line." Katherine sang from where she was fiddling with the television. Elena dropped the packet like it had burnt her pulling a face.

"So why am I here?"

"And why am I invited?" Caroline asked her arms folded as she appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.

After Caroline had ignored all attempts at communication from Katherine she'd called the face puncher himself. Stefan had taken Caroline back home to Mystic Falls last night, telling her to actually have her break like everyone else and to blow off the play.

The last part she was on board for, there was no way she was facing Klaus. It only took one call to her teacher and a convincing fake cough.

"_I just think it's a cold but I've heard laryngitis is going around. I'd hate to *cough* infect anyone."_

"Stefan said it was important, but it looks like I've come to see you go into a junk food coma." She said a bit amused by the excessive amounts of food littered across every surface.

"We're here because Stefan punched Klaus in the middle of the grill today," Katherine told her tearing open a packet of mini marshmallows with ease breathing in their smell with a smile.

Caroline's jaw hit the ground. So that's what he was doing a couple of hours ago?

"He told me he was going out to get some milk!" Caroline said with a gasp. "Is he okay?" she asked immediately and regretted it with an eye roll from Katherine.

"Just a bloody nose and a bruised ego. I thought you'd be happy?!"

"Will someone please tell me what's going on?" Elena pleaded stepping between the two girls, waving about her hands.

"Klaus is Caroline's online lover!" Katherine shouted and Caroline groaned.

"Could barely contain that could you?" Caroline asked the older smiling girl sarcastically who groaned in response at her glare.

"I've been waiting for you to get here to tell Elena for forever!" She complained.

"But you told her!" Caroline accused at the same time Elena spoke.

"I've only been here five minutes!"

"Is that true Care?" Elena asked gently when she noticed the sad expression her friend was trying to hide all of a sudden.

Caroline sighed, "yeah he's Nick." She slumped down onto the Gilbert couch with a packet of chips from the junk food pile.

"Nick?" Katherine asked curiously and Caroline groaned staring at the eager eyed Gilbert sisters.

"If we're going to do this I'm going to need to put frosting on these," Caroline told Katherine expectantly shaking the bag of chips at her.

"So who's Nick?" Katherine asked curiously as she folded her legs underneath herself next to Caroline. Eager for the real story, not the shotty half guy version she'd gotten from Elijah. She barely waited seconds to pounce as Elena handed Caroline the frosting from the fridge.

"Klaus, I just said that." Caroline said through a mouth full of frosting.

"Yes but I didn't know that, you didn't. I mean what was he?" Katherine asked and turned to look at Elena who'd hit her across the arm giving her a stern look.

She knew how much Nick meant to Caroline.

And she spent most of her time telling her a relationship with him was pointless.

_Like the other night at Damon's._

Except it wasn't.

He was a real person now, he was Klaus freaking Mikalson. Why wasn't her friend happy? They obviously had a connection; she saw it at Damon's. Then there was every other time Caroline mentioned him, either in anger or with a faint blush. Not to mention how into Nick she was already, even if she'd been in denial about it.

A blind man could see they had sexual chemistry. But now they had real chemistry, it was like the best blind date ever.

Like a movie, or a novel.

Fate had brought them together.

Caroline didn't think so.

"We just email," Caroline dismissed trying to go back on her promise of talking as Katherine loomed over her.

Elena scoffed, "for two years! Like every day, they can't go two hours without talking most of the time. Oh my god you haven't gone days without talking to Klaus Mikalson since the end of high school." Elena broke off wistfully and Caroline widened her eyes at her.

"He didn't tell me who he was!" she reiterated to Elena, because apparently she couldn't find the fault in what she'd been agonising over the past 48 hours.

"Well neither did you, you told me you guys never did pictures. Or last names, or personal info." Elena said remembering it from one of their many conversations when she'd been worried her friend was befriending a serial killer.

"Apparently we didn't do first names either," Caroline mumbled snatching the bag of chocolate out of Elena's hands. She didn't like pineapple lumps but she was going to take a handful to spite her.

"Actually," Katherine chimed in with a smile to which Caroline frowned at. "Technically that's his name to."

"So what he picked KLAUS for showbiz?" Caroline asked with a scoff, because honestly it was a weird name. That's probably why everyone remembered it after hearing it once. In fact that was probably the purpose of it, marketing.

"No his whole name is the two squished together. Only his siblings call him Nick, but Elijah still calls him Niklaus. I'm pretty sure it's only to irritate him." Katherine finished with a slight smirk. Her and her fiancé had things in common after all. What was really intriguing her though was that Klaus had introduced himself to Caroline as Nick.

Obviously Caroline found it offensive that he used different names. Katherine however saw it as an intimate gesture from a very non intimate person.

But perhaps Caroline was right, maybe he was just concealing his identity.

"It's just I get he couldn't help it at first. I mean it's not like he planned to meet me, we were always reluctant to meet. But after? I mean he-"

"Totally tried to get into your pants." Katherine stated flatly. She had her own mind to sock Klaus in the face too, maybe even her own since she'd encouraged the flirtation.

Elena scrunched her nose, "your making it sound more sinister and manipulative."

Caroline frowned, she couldn't think of a time Klaus had used his intimate knowledge of her from their emails in real life application.

In fact, the one time she thought it might go anywhere he'd pulled away.

He hadn't kissed her that night. Was this why?

"It never felt like that," Caroline amended trying to shake off the pleasant memory of his stay at her home, how natural it had been to have breakfast with him. "I think that's what bugs my control freak mind. I didn't see it coming at all." She admitted.

"Nick was so sweet and nice and there for me. I mean I don't even know Klaus really. Except that he's famous, good at teaching, likes tea and can sometimes be sweet to I guess." Caroline began rambling barely noticing Katherine's raised eyebrow.

"Maybe that's why he didn't tell you." Elena suggested, "Maybe he wanted you to like him first?"

Caroline rolled her eyes, "what like I'm some gold digger after his money and fame? Your right I was all over him when I met him." Caroline told her sarcastically before she sighed. "It's not like we met on some dating site, N-he was meant to be my friend first and now… I can't trust him." Caroline steeled her expression into one of indifference when the Gilbert sisters exchanged a not so subtle worried glance over her head.

"Look whatever, I don't care. Whatever the reason, it's not a good enough one. I'm done with both of them. Nick, Klaus whatever he wants to be called. It's over."

.

.

**AN/ I think I broke my funny bone, except for Stefan punching Klaus. Well you all saw the angst coming, I don't write a lot of it so I'm aware it's all over the place, sorry haha but I got like over 30 reviews last chapter which was insane so I tried to persevere to update. I'm glad you guys liked how she found out, thanks for the encouragement. There will be a little bit of a time skip I think for the next chapter; I think I'm gonna go write it now. I'm on a roll. **

So I always forget to respond properly to guest reviews but someone signed as **Lavanya**? Thanks for your review, you asked about Damon so I thought I would try and clear it up a little for you. He's not a big dramatic part of Caroline's past, but she obviously doesn't like him and Elena's not familiar with how they broke up exactly. I actually talked a little about their relationship in the third chapter? I think, so what I've had in minds pretty set in stone since forever ago. It is a little cannon with how it played out but not tremendously so, most of everyone's background is. But their relationship was important because it helped Caroline realise some other things about her past which actually helped her make better changes in her life. I think I explained that horribly, sorry, but hopefully it all makes sense eventually. I hope that helped haha.


	12. Chapter 12

It had been over a week since Klaus had left. It had been easy to avoid him in his last few days by staying away from campus…and people. Mostly everyone, she was practically a hermit.

Her inbox was flooded and Caroline had barely looked at the million messages from Klaus. It was too weird seeing them under the familiar email, it only made things feel worse. A reminder of the truth.

Brady was meant to be meeting with her in five minutes since she'd been avoiding him since the restaurant. He wasn't stupid, he knew something was wrong. Something with her and Klaus.

Caroline thought it might just be easier to forget about him now, now that he wasn't lurking about her school. Now that he was a million miles away and back in La or wherever it was he lived. Except she couldn't, she'd almost broken her phone when the number of times she'd subconsciously gone to text Nick reached well and truly over a hundred. She even missed Klaus and his stupid smirky smiles and jokes.

But then she remembered why she was mad at him all over again and then she just felt empty. She didn't gain anything by being angry; all she did was lose another person. She was always prepared to lose Klaus, but she was never prepared to lose Nick.

Ever.

"Caroline!" Brady called in the corridor of her dormitory. She tilted her head and smiled at his approach.

"Hey, I thought we were meeting at the café?" she asked pulling out her keys from her jeans. He looked a little flushed, like he'd run when he'd seen her.

"Well I saw you a second ago and thought we'd just go together. Except you disappeared like a ninja." He told her with a faux Karate chop that made her snort.

"Now I know your lying, there is no way** I** was moving too fast for anyone to see." She said with an eye roll jamming her key in the lock.

"I just need my books and we can-Holy F- What the hell is this?" Caroline shouted as she swung open the door.

There were about a hundred white boxes strewn about the dorm room on every surface.

"I've been robbed!" she shouted dramatically finally choking out some words as she walked further into the room.

"Actually Caroline I think this is the opposite of that," she heard Brady call out behind her amusedly but she was too astonished to comment back snidely.

"What are they? How did they get in here?" Caroline asked twirling around to take in the copious amount of boxes. "You don't think there like bombs or something?" she asked poking one experimentally with her finger.

On closer inspection they looked like cake boxes.

Why would there be cake in their room? Had Elena suddenly decided cake was her vocation?

Caroline noticed a white envelope taped to the one of the tallest towers. It had her name written on it in fancy cursive and she approached in apprehensively.

"Well what is it?" Brady asked from behind her making her jump slightly.

"I don't know lurker," she said with a pointed glare which made him take a step back, a grin on his face when she turned nervous again.

Inside the envelope was a slip of card with far less extravagant looking handwriting.

_Despite what you think, I do know you _

_And I still want to_

_-Niklaus_

Caroline heart sped up as she opened the box it had been resting on, she gasped slightly by its contents before turning to the next box only to find the same.

There must have been hundreds.

-0-

Klaus was in a mood. He'd just messaged Caroline for the hundredth and possibly most pathetic time only to receive more radio silence.

It was torture.

He'd blown it.

He'd actually blown it twice. The first time when she'd found out before he told her and the second time was when he choked.

He'd been standing right there in front of her. With her telling him to explain, asking for something, anything. Klaus later realised that it was his shot at some kind of forgiveness. She'd been asking him for a reason and he stood there like a gaping fish.

He knew Caroline. She liked to mull things over and obsess about them on a completely new level. Lists were involved. Pros and cons were made, things divided. They'd had several full scale debates demonstrating this. It was how their idiotic coffee versus tea thing came about.

But he hadn't given her much to go on. He gave her nothing to pick at, to even lead to some kind of forgiveness or closure. Just a bunch of questions and only one answer;

That he was a massive jackass.

In the moment he thought no answer would have been good enough and it wouldn't have. But he should have said SOMETHING better; he should have done something different, anything probably would have been better.

Instead he'd stalked her dorm room and almost beat up Macbeth for her phone number. Except the boy was stronger than he looked and Klaus found himself being dressed down by ANOTHER twenty something boy for his poor life choices.

He may have been slightly drunk for that altercation but at least Brady hadn't hit him. But that was probably because he didn't know the full story.

"Klaus? Earth to Klaus? MIKALSON?"

Klaus jolted out of his musings to see a dark brow raised across from him expectantly.

"What?" he grumbled looking back up from his phone.

"If they wanted to call you they would, stop looking." She told him flatly and he glared at the woman across from him.

"Thanks Bonnie you're a real peach," he said through narrowed eyes. It only seemed to amuse her though as she whistled lowly at his reaction.

"Geez is that what this is about? You're whole prissy pants attitude the entire week?" Bonnie asked sceptically as she assessed the man across from her in the town car.

"You didn't actually get into a fight over a girl in Virginia did you?" Bonnie asked the scepticism rising in her voice, but it looked to be true when he grimaced.

"Of course not," he spat.

Under no circumstances would he tell anyone attached to this life about Caroline.

Hell two weeks ago that privileged list would have had no one on it. Even her.

"So what'd you do hit on his girlfriend?" Bonnie asked holding up the familiar magazine cover. It had been a frequently asked question since the press tour had started. He would have killed Stefan for being so brazen if he hadn't been so justified.

Klaus grit his teeth the question setting him on edge.

"She's not his girlfriend," he couldn't help but spit out and Bonnie gave him a disbelieving look.

"So it **was** about a girl. What the hell has gotten into you?"

Klaus looked up to the woman who had her head tilted to the side in query and concern. He shouldn't be lashing out at her; she'd taken on most of the brunt of the press ever since they started. She'd been directing attention away from him with smiles, laughs and amusing anecdotes all week.

Klaus had been lucky to have been on the crazy "Razor's" ride with Bonnie. With a movie and following that huge it would have really sucked to hate his co-star. He'd never had to worry about her diva-ing out and there'd never been anything remotely sexual between them off camera since she'd dated his brother before they'd even met. It kind of puts an automatic damper on everything leading you straight into the friend zone.

It annoyed Kol to no end though when he gloated about their sizzling sex scenes on screen. It put him in a tizzy, being the only thing fun about the fact since sex scenes were awkward enough let alone with his brother's girl.

Well ex-girl now.

Suffice to say he considered her a rare friend of the girl variety.

"Nothing, don't worry about it." Klaus said unconvincingly glancing back at the cover of the magazine.

Someone had a camera phone at the Grill.

Klaus' visit to Virginia had been rather low key besides a few photos from Damon's party and then his brawl with Stefan. He'd almost been surprised there'd been photographic evidence since the residence seemed to lack interest in him after his first few days. That and he wasn't a happy smiley picture celebrity after you'd asked him a billion times.  
>Then every other time he set foot out it was mostly with his brother and extension Katherine who was very clearly disliked by the town's people. Klaus had to admit he enjoyed wielding her like a repellent when they'd been in public.<p>

It wasn't a grainy picture either; someone clearly took it on one of those fancy camera phones. You know the big square ones? Yeah, so someone had put it up with Stefan's name attached on twitter. Klaus felt kind of bad his name got dragged into it but obviously no one had the real story. He was almost thankful he'd basically been hit and left by Stefan without some massive drama about Caroline.

Apparently all the magazine could decide was that; _the alleged quarrel was over a girl_

_Very original,_ Klaus had thought bitterly chucking it down when he'd first scanned the article. Katherine assured him no other details would resurface and he trusted her, especially with this.

With Caroline.

That had been one of the five words she'd spoken to him since Elijah had folded like a crinkled suit to her and spilled his guts. Thank god she wasn't here right now.

"Fine, but it's not me you have to convince." Bonnie told him with a knowing smile and he rolled his eyes checking his phone again.

He wanted to know if she'd gotten his present.

He couldn't help but think of Caroline at her words and the next question slipped out of his mouth without thought. "If you gift something rather…extravagant to someone…you'd expect some kind of acknowledgment right?"

Bonnie blinked confusedly before she grinned at him, her perceptions being right. "Sure-what's the occasion?" she pried and he relented slightly wanting a woman's opinion when he stared at his blank phone again. It was mocking him.

"An apology, a large one." Klaus said, clearly stating it was all he'd say on the matter by his tone.

Bonnie nodded in understanding, "they might just need time. Or.."

"Or what?" He said annoyed by her reluctance and she rolled her eyes before she continued.

"Or if it's as extravagant like you said, someone might see that as you trying to buy their forgiveness. You did actually apologise first right?" Bonnie asked as she looked to a strangely out of sorts Klaus. He was never like this, sure he was overboard and more than a little self-righteous every second she knew him but he'd never been apologetic about it.

Or worried about what someone else might think of it.

Klaus never cared about magazines or gossip. He did as he pleased and didn't care what anyone had to say about it. It made him honest but he seemed extremely guarded right now.

"Not exactly," he grumbled annoyed before he felt their car slow down. There was faint rustling from a group of people waiting up the street so Klaus steeled himself a moment to paint on a smile.

They had arrived.

Klaus thought about a particular conversation he'd had with Caroline almost two years prior for what must have been the hundredth time since he'd organised his gift. It brought conviction to his smile as he slung his arm around Bonnies shoulder when they were herded through a throng of fans to their next destination.

(AN: This is a flashback but there are emails; so no it's not in italics)

_What do you mean you don't do comfort food?_

Klaus had scoffed at the immediate outraged answer and he rolled his eyes at the question. They'd been arguing ever since he'd left his apartment and tried to walk down the street. He'd been talking to her as a means of distraction but found himself quickly involved in a rather silly debate.

**I MEAN that I have a body to look after. I don't go around eating ice cream when I'm sad like a woman.**

_You did NOT just say that!_

Klaus' lips quirked at her answer. He found himself rather enjoying his conversations with the girl over the past month since they'd met. She was abrasive and honest, she had opinions that nearly always clashed with his but it only intrigued him more to her.

Arguing with her brought a smile to his face and away from all the craziness he'd been facing lately at work. The paparazzi seemed to be everywhere now; he couldn't leave his apartment and have someone snap a picture of him. He didn't dislike the attention, far from it, but he hadn't realised how closely everyone seemed to want to watch him especially his personal life.

**Well I fail to see how something as trivial as chocolate could improve my mood.**

_Well if you're going to be small minded of course not. _

**Fine, what's yours then?**

_Obviously it's the universal option of cupcakes. They cure sadness you know_

**That sounds completely made up and untrue**…**The last part anyway.** He'd rolled his eyes and let out an actual laugh at the brazen statement as he waited for his coffee order to be done with. A couple of people looked up and whispered once he'd caught their attention. Several women turned to gaze adoringly at the noise only to see something even more appealing.

_That's because you're a pessimist. _Was her fast reply and he snorted still smiling as he ignored everything else around him.

**No it's because I'm not seven.**

_NO WAY! That's totally when I found out about the cupcakes!_

**Oh here we go…**

_God you're rude. Besides I know your dying of anticipation, I am about to uncover the cure to quite the epidemic you know. You should be honoured. _

**You're actually ridiculous**

_AS I WAS SAYING… cupcakes. So it was my seventh birthday and my mum who I never saw totally surprised me and took me out for the whole day. It's the best memory I have of us, she even baked, she never bakes. Those cupcakes were the first real cake I'd had for my birthday…_

Klaus found his face relaxing at her earnest words before he tried to think of a reply.

**I bet they were lovely.**

_The cupcakes? Oh god no they were so gross, she doesn't bake for a reason…but I don't think I've ever been happier. In fact I believe it's actually impossible NOT to smile while eating one. Even an awful tasting one. _

It should have deterred him, the intimate turn of the conversation. But it hadn't, it only intrigued him.

_Soooo have I convinced you? Elena tells me I convince people like a politician, except I'm prettier and I dress better :P…although I think she mostly means it when I coheres her into joining yet another one of my club activities…_

"Mr Mikalson," Klaus looked up out of his haze to hear a nervous voice call his name. It was the blushing barista trying to hand him his coffee.

"Your coffee's ready,"

His eyes rested onto the glass casing beside the register for a moment and Klaus smiled easily at the nervous girl, his mood suddenly a lot more pleasant.

What the hell.

"Throw in one of those little cakes will you love." She blushed scrambling to make it apart of his purchase before tallying up his total.

He realised Caroline might have been on to something when he grinned the whole way home despite the copious wandering eyes of strangers.

It had been a damn good cupcake.

-0-

Klaus scrambled out of his chair that he had been restlessly sitting in beside Bonnie as they sat through another interview. They were almost done but Klaus' ringing made him jolt out of his seat to check his phone. He didn't recognise the number.

He knew everyone who had this number; he was very private with this phone…endless. He scrambled to answer it even as Bonnie pulled on the back of his Henley to berate him.

"Klaus we still have another interview! How did you get to keep your phone?"

He ignored her, "hello?" he asked unsurely.

"Klaus?" he breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the familiar voice he'd been craving to hear all week. He turned to Bonnie, "cover me I'll be back." He told her before sprinting out of the hotel's set up room through one of the back doors into the hallway.

"Yeah it's me Caroline? Did you get my-"

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"

Klaus winced; it wasn't exactly the reaction he was hoping for. At least she was talking to him, shouting… semantics. He could work with this.

"I don't exactly know what you mean love," Klaus said because as far as he knew she was mad at him for a variety of reasons, he didn't want to get it wrong.

"YOU CAN'T JUST BREAK INTO MY DORM ROOM AND SEND ME A THOUSAND CUPCAKES!"

"Oh that," he couldn't help the smirk that played on his lips.

"HOW DID YOU EVEN GET IN HERE?"

He frowned, she was meant to like it.

"Is that really why you found my number to talk to me? To ask how I got in?"

"God you're such an ass!"

"Then why are you finally speaking to me!" he snapped, this wasn't how this was meant to start. She was supposed to find it charming.

"Excuse me? You're the one who hasn't even apologised!" Caroline yelled into the phone and his eyes narrowed.

"What the hell do you think the cupcakes were for!" he shouted and winced when a passing member of the press team passed him giving him an odd look. They scurried on with a harsh glare.

Caroline scoffed, "that's not an apology Klaus! You can't just-buy people things and think it'll be okay!" Caroline said angrily but muddled and Klaus ran his hand over his face in irritation.

"Well what can I do Caroline?" he hated how he sounded and sighed when he was met with silence.

"I tried seeing you! You didn't show up to any of the last rehearsals, you weren't in your dorm room. Katherine refused to tell me if she'd seen you…and I know I didn't handle the other night well…but I want to make this right Caroline, how can I acquit myself?" He asked trying to sound more like himself, charming, not this begging mess he was becoming. The nervousness shone through as he paced the hall, he was going to wear a hole in the carpet.

What was he doing?

"You can't," she told him flatly.

"Surely that's not true," he began hoping to at least garner some hopes from this train wreck of a phone call.

"You lied to me Klaus! About everything!" she snapped angrily.

"Well not everything… I told you I was British didn't I?" he said half-heartedly trying to lighten the mood.

"British! Not a fucking celebrity…and how was I ever supposed to guess that? You jackass!"

Klaus almost laughed at her answer, of course Caroline would be mad about that. "Is that really all you're taking away from this?"

"I'm sorry is there some other way I should be reacting to this? You knew… How long did you know?!" She said finally reaching the question she'd been dying to ask since their last confrontation outside of the restaurant.

"A while," he eluded carefully before sighing, if he wanted to clear things up with her he was going to have to be honest about it. "Fine, after lunch, I had to confirm a few things but then-"

"The ELENA KATHERINE LUNCH OF DOOM? THAT LUNCH? The lunch where we MET?" Klaus held the phone away from his ear.

This literally couldn't get any worse, the only way this could have gone better is if he hadn't picked up the phone… Or if she had been screaming at him in person, even then at least he'd get to see her.

"Well technically we met at a bar," Klaus corrected smiling slightly when she yelled at him again. No, hope wasn't lost after all.

-0-

Caroline unwrapped another cupcake from its patty pan and shoved it into her mouth. Her lap was littered with them, why did they have to be so good?

She hated him.

She hated how everything turned out.

She hated that this was the most thoughtful gesture she'd ever received.

And that they tasted so damn good.

There was a knock on the door, "FOR THE LAST TIME THIS ISN'T A BAKE SALE! GO BUY YOUR OWN BOWNIES POT HEADS!"

"I surrender," Stefan said opening the door with an amused smile holding up his hands to yield.

"Oh Stefan, would you like a cupcake?" Caroline asked like it was completely normal to be surrounded by boxes of cakes.

"Um sure?" He said looking around the room as he approached his friend. "So are you going to make me ask about the bakery that exploded in here or…?" Stefan trailed off finding a place to sit down, chucking his bag haphazardly to the floor in a clear space.

"Here this one's buttercream," Caroline told him holding out a cupcake in front of his face. "I feel like I should probably disclose that they're from Klaus." Caroline added right before Stefan took a bite.

He scrunched up his nose in distaste and she laughed at his reaction.

"Hasn't he heard of flowers? They're cheaper….and don't go off without refrigeration," Stefan muttered looking around at the boxes he assumed were filled with more cakes.

"I know! I can only fit 98 of them in our mini fridge, the plan is to eat as many as I can and then give them away to the other starving college kids. The ones that don't have a grovelling celebrity." Caroline told him nonchalantly.

"Thoughtful," he told her with a quirked brow before she agreed by stuffing another in her mouth.

"I-tho-ught-soo,"

Stefan rolled his eyes. "Well he clearly doesn't know you as well as I thought. Otherwise we'd be sitting in a river made of coffee."

"I had a dream like that once, you drowned. I had to drink the river to save you." Caroline told him with a thoughtful dreamy look. Stefan shook his head with a slight laugh before he muttered, "of course you did."

"I called him," Caroline said after a moment of silence when only chewing could be heard and Stefan blinked at her surprised, "is that why you're forcing yourself into a sugar coma?"

Caroline rolled her eyes, "no I yelled at him." She said obviously.

"For the cupcakes?" Stefan asked clarifying and she glared.

"YES FOR THE CUPCAKES…and for everything else." She added sighing. Their phone call hadn't gone quite to plan; even with a few more answers Caroline still didn't feel satisfied. She was still angry and she was even angrier that she wasn't quite as angry as she thought she was.

_Still very angry._ She reminded herself as she bit forcefully into a chocolate chip cupcake.

It was like they'd broken up and he'd supplied the ice cream.

_Thoughtful, romantic ice cream. _She thought bitterly shifting slightly, the card he sent still burning in her jacket pocket.

"Did you want to talk about it?" Stefan asked pulling her out of her thoughts and she shook her head.

"What about you? How was today? Did you go to class?" Caroline asked concerned. He seemed okay since he walked in but Caroline knew he'd been playing down any backlash he got from punching Klaus before he left.

Stefan had gotten several death threats about marring Klaus' perfect face. Apparently they weren't a big happy family in Mystic Falls. She would kill whoever it was that did this to him.

Stefan looked at her with a small smile at her concern. It reminded him of when she'd found out he'd followed through with some of his threat to Klaus. She'd called him shortly after arriving at the Gilberts; he honestly wasn't surprised Katherine had been the first to tell her.

"_Hey I was hoping you could define something for me," Caroline said immediately into the phone without greeting._

"_Shoot," he said going along with his friends antics; he'd long ago stopped trying to figure out what made his friend tick. _

"_So when someone goes out to get milk, one would assume that that means that they DON'T GO OUT TO PUNCH SOMEONE IN THE FACE." _

_Stefan held the phone away from his ear as soon as he'd heard milk, he sighed unforgiving. It's not like he regretted it._

"_Well you told me I couldn't kill him," he said easily unaffected by her irritation._

"_Yes Stefan! But you can't go around hitting people in broad daylight, in a crowded restaurant!" She scolded and his lips quirked._

"_So what if it had been darker and less witnesses? I would have had the green light? I'm not apologising for looking out for you." He finished firmer and he heard her sigh._

"_I wasn't asking you to…I just, did a lot of people see? I don't want to get you into trouble." Caroline said softly and Stefan relaxed. She wasn't mad at him, she was worried for him. _

'_And knowing her, she would still be worried for Klaus to.'_

"_It doesn't matter. I told you a long time ago I wouldn't let anyone hurt you," He began sternly and Caroline couldn't help but hear the unspoken 'again' missing from the sentence. "Besides I warned pretty boy not to hurt you." Stefan finished lighter and Caroline snorted into her phone._

"_Great Stefan I'm glad you remember threatening Klaus but not telling him about my personal life. Or anything else from that night." Caroline told him dryly but he could tell she was joking so he chuckled._

"_Don't sell yourself short I remember our fantastic moves on the dance floor." Stefan teased and was pleased when she laughed._

He'd been so worried about her the past couple of days. When she'd broken down in front of him he'd felt so helpless. Caroline didn't do tears, he remembered the last time Caroline cried in front of him and it wasn't something he wanted to relive.

It was why he'd been so mad.

Caroline never let anyone in. He knows this because he'd pushed himself into her life with a force. At first it had been for Elena's sake, but he soon learned that he and Caroline shared a unique friendship. One that he saw realistically lasting their whole lives, he didn't have a doubt about that.

He knew his friend. There was a reason he joked so much about Nick to Caroline. She cared for him, she'd let him in and Stefan knew this through all her secret smiles and laugh's he'd heard her share.

Stefan had admitted that she might even trust the stranger with things she didn't him; Caroline had once told him that it was easier. It had hardly been surprising that when he'd seen Klaus he'd reacted.

All of his protective nature seemed to spring into action when he saw him moping at the bar of the grill.

The conversation hadn't been a long one, barely turning Klaus around. He'd planned to just give him a piece of his mind but Caroline's tear stricken face flashed through his mind and he'd snapped.

And in the process he thought he might have snapped his nose.

Stefan had heard the murmuring and people talking around them. Some gasping, but all he saw was Klaus' passive face when he asked Stefan _if he felt better_.

Stefan relished in the fact that Klaus looked about as miserable as Caroline did before he hissed out a parting question as he left the bar; "Do you?"

"Stefan? Earth to Stefan?"

"What?" he said shaking his head.

"Did you go to class?" Caroline asked the concern still harrowing her face when he grinned easily at her.

"Oh yeah, I had sociology today. That girl I told you about?-"

"Rachel," Caroline cut in, because of course she knew. She hadn't let that go very easily once he'd brought it up that night.

Stefan smiled, "yeah. Not so much a Klaus fan, apparently I'm a badass."

"Badasses don't say that," Caroline told him with an eye roll and a relieved smile. "You know what might win your favour back into society?" Caroline asked him suddenly enthusiastic.

"What?" he asked a little apprehensively.

"You…helping me… hand out these free cupcakes," Caroline told him with her happy planning face and Stefan scoffed.

"Yeah that'll make me feel better," he told her sarcastically helping her to her feet, crumbs falling everywhere.

"Oh I think you might have been right about the sugar, I don't feel so good." Caroline said pulling a face as she held her stomach, ignoring Stefan's laughter.

"Actually I do feel better."

.

.

**AN: So there was a bit of everything there, I know not a lot of direct Klaroline but I wanted Caroline to have some space from Klaus. The emails still found their way in there though haha… hope it flowed okay I wrote it all over the place and stuck it together. It was going in like five different directions when I started. Hope you liked the cupcakes! Call back to chapter 2 ;) damn that foreshadowing, jk. But Klaus loves giving Caroline extravagant gifts. Oh and did you guys mind Bonnie? Anyways review me as always. **

**Ps. Shout out to the guest that reminded me there'd be backlash to someone punching Klaus…in public. Hope that was dealt with ok. I read your review and was like, shit your totally right haha so kudos. **


	13. Chapter 13

"So do you wanna do this before we have to do it in front of everyone or…?" Caroline began awkwardly as she shifted in her extravagant dress. She and Brady were relaxing in one of the dressing rooms after their director/teacher had confiscated Caroline's coffee when she almost spilt some on her costume. He'd sighed dramatically swiping his hand over his face before telling Brady to take her away and to keep her clean until the staging was finished.

Like she was some five year old in a fancy dress at a wedding.

Brady thankfully looked just as awkward when he scratched his head, "would that make it less weird for you?" he asked turning towards her and she leant forward to help him with his own costume that he was adjusting.

Caroline let out a slight laugh, "I think it's going to be weird anyway." She mumbled and he nodded.

"Well I think we'll have the momentum of the scene behind us, it'll just be us acting." He suddenly gave her a very relaxed smile, "have you done this before?"

"Excuse me?" she asked offended misunderstanding the question and he rolled his eyes.

"I mean on stage Caroline," he elaborated and she made a small "oh" of acknowledgment, slightly embarrassed when he smirked at her.

"What about you Romeo? Kiss a lot of chicks as a drama nerd in high school?" Caroline asked with a risen eyebrow and he rolled his eyes.

"I'm not bragging Caroline but I was in a lot of plays…and my skins always looked like this," he joked and she laughed. Now a little curious.

"When did you…like..."

"Come out?" he asked smirking at her uncomfortableness. Every run off question was always the same one to him. He was a little surprised they'd never had this conversation considering how close they'd gotten over the semester.

"Well I've always sort of known but I tried to be straight in high school. Had a few girlfriend's, I never had a real hard time because I thought I was pretty good at pretending. Guess I was afraid of losing that, my dad was actually the one to sit me down and ask me if I was happy." He smiled slightly at the memory and Caroline returned it encouragingly.

"He told me that I shouldn't be afraid to be myself. Mum on the other hand likes to pretend it's some kind of phase. She accepts me and all but she's not really cool with it…being up in her face. It took her forever to meet Danny."

Caroline smiled imagining how that went over. From all the conversations they'd had over the past couple of months it was clear Danny was far more comfortable with public displays of affection than Brady. "He pouted the whole way home because I hadn't even let him hold my hand." Brady rolled his eyes and she laughed.

"You guys are incredibly cute and I'm incredibly jealous." Caroline sighed dramatically and he snorted.

"Well I don't remember the last time we sent a million cupcakes to each other but we try." he dodged a punch she sent his way in anticipation. "Honestly Caroline I didn't stop smiling when you explained it to me. It almost killed me when you said I couldn't tell Danny about the story." She hadn't given away the whole truth to Brady but enough to swear him to super secrecy. He told her it was the girliest thing ever with an eye roll when she'd shown him the super-secret handshake. She'd then exclaimed he was the worst gay friend ever.

"SEE that's what I want! Someone who can't keep a secret from me!" Caroline exclaimed with a frown and Brady sighed when she started pouting deciding to change the subject to something that had been bugging him.

"Fine fine I'll shut up, I'm on your side… So I heard your coming to New York now? How'd that happen?" he asked and Caroline was suddenly too happy to notice the suspicious tone of his voice.

"They found money in the budget isn't that the greatest?" All thoughts of Klaus left her mind as she gushed.

"Yeah, makes you wonder why they'd dig into their greedy pockets," Brady mumbled as he watched her alight expression.

"Who cares?" Caroline waved off before launching into a big ramble about what they would be doing in New York in two weeks' time. They were called for their dress rehearsal soon after.

-0-

"Oh my god," Caroline didn't bother to look up at Stefan's words from her bed. It was clearly sarcastic, but she bit out an irritated reply. He was cutting into her study time; she didn't have time for their shenanigans. Yes shenanigans.

"What?"

"There is room in your fridge, actually space. Does Elena know?" Stefan mock gasped and she threw the nearest book at him. She'd played right into that.

"It's been over a month Stefan. The cakes been gone for a while now," she added a little sadly. She had to go back to eating actual food, she sighed. "Elena's gone out to fill it with things I don't like-"

"So aloe water?" He asked grinning knowing her reaction.

"It even sounds gross," Caroline said with a slight shiver.

"Well you were hording the last of those cupcakes, I mean you had about a zillion, but NO I couldn't have one of the last five… Even though they were probably stale." He added remembering how hungry he'd been a couple of weeks ago; they'd had this stupid massive fight about Caroline choosing baked goods over him in a hypothetical fire.

"_Well who would it be?" Stefan demanded when she was taking too long to answer, his stomach grumbling._

"_Well that's not fair, the cupcakes don't have legs." Caroline replied indignantly before their hypothetical argument escalated to reality._

They hadn't spoken to one another for two days until Brady had told her they were acting like Children. "_You're making out like he stole your Barbie doll." He told her with a scoff._

"Hey guys!" Caroline sighed thankfully as Elena entered the room breaking her out of the memory, even if she was carrying six bottles of familiar strange water and an unsettling grin.

"Hey Lena how was the test?" Caroline asked. It had become steadily easier for her friends to be around each other without it being ridiculously awkward. Now that they could all be in the same room, Caroline found herself with a startling amount of free time.

Elena groaned, "awful BUT look at all the stuff I bought!" she finished excitedly moving towards the fridge.

Stefan frowned when he watched her pull out weird thing after weird thing. "Where is the junk? You are a college student not a tree person."

Caroline groaned preparing for the speech that would ensue; Elena was on a cleanse and thought everyone should know about it.

I.e. the most annoying thing to happen since that one time her fifth grade teacher tried to quit smoking or when vegan's explained why they didn't eat meat. Caroline had put up with all the weirdness over the past month because she'd needed the Klaus distraction and she knew it was probably Katherine related. Caroline had been a bit preoccupied ignoring his existence but apparently the Gilbert sisters had another famous blow out that ended Katherine's visit on a rather sour note.

There'd been threats, hair flipping and harsh promises where Elena told Katherine she wouldn't come to the wedding.

Katherine had still been in contact with Caroline, not that she was telling Elena how much but she refused to talk about Katherine to her anyway. Every time she tried to bring it up she'd bring Klaus up and then they'd glare at each other in silence before one of them left for a made up prior engagement. They'd hit a snag in their repeated futile efforts the other night when they'd gotten into the argument late at night. Elena had substituted leaving for the longest shower in history.

"Elena where are my kopiko's?" Caroline asked when she got to the end of the bag.

"I told you that coffee-"

"Was blackening my soul, my life, poisoning my veins. I know I was there for all seven conversations. But you asked me what I wanted and I gave you the money and I need a study snack!" Caroline complained shutting her book irritated. It'd been a stressful week with the play opening on the weekend and it counting for a bunch of her grade and everything else being due at the same time...

Caroline had been having mini heart attacks and smelling toast all day just thinking about the pressure.

"I swear to god Elena if you hand me that apple you're holding instead of what I asked for, me and my poisonous ass are going to kick yours," Caroline warned pointing at her friend with a pencil.

"Okay that's my cue to leave; I'm going to get me some real food." Stefan said standing up and gathering his stuff as he checked his phone for the time.

"What? Take me with you!" Caroline said reaching upwards as he passed and he rolled his eyes a grin on his face.

"OW," a surprisingly hard apple hit her arm, "ELENA!" she groaned.

"You promised me WE were hanging out!" She told her sternly and Caroline rolled her eyes when the door slammed shut at Elena's words. Okay maybe her friends weren't as mature as she thought to hang out altogether.

"I know I was joking, mostly, dear god Elena why does it all have to be green?" Caroline said looking at the inside of the fridge before it closed.

"Because green is healthy," she corrected and Caroline rolled her eyes at her logic.

"You mean healthier than cupcakes," she corrected and Elena sighed joining her on her bed. Caroline took a bite out of the apple and refrained from making a noise of enjoyment. It was super crunchy.

"You know how I felt about the cupcakes," she reminded Caroline.

"Yeah yeah romantic but weird," Caroline told her with a smirk and she frowned.

"Because you didn't tell me what they meant!" Elena cried annoyed and Caroline grinned taking another bite.

"It's been two days since you tried asking I'm impressed-hey!" Elena had snatched the apple away from her; she'd been trying to coax the real story out of Caroline for weeks. She'd make up something ridiculous each time she pressed to hard.

Caroline knew she hadn't told her about the card and what it really meant to her because Elena would vocalise how sweet it was. Then berate her for blowing up at Klaus and then harp on about her life being a Disney princess movie in which she should run off into the sunset with Klaus on a pony.

Elena clearly hadn't read the friend memo where you automatically and blindly hated who your friend hates.

Caroline was fine with her decision to pretend Klaus didn't exist. Aside from that being virtually impossible she was doing fine. She just turned over all the new entertainment magazines that had his face on them in the supermarket grumbling angrily. She was pretty sure the woman in front of her thought she was crazy but she hadn't cared.

She was fine.

Absolutely fine.

Not missing him at all.

"Come on Caroline I don't have to know whatever adorable anecdote the cupcakes refer to to see how much they meant to you. I thought you were going bipolar those first couple of days. Smiling like an idiot and then frowning," she sighed. "It's okay to care about him Caroline." She said softly handing her back the apple and Caroline responded with a harsh bite.

"It doesn't matter anymore," She said through her mouthful.

Elena scoffed, "of course it does. You don't stop caring about someone just because they do something stupid…Caroline...? Don't shut me out again." Caroline whipped her head to her friend who'd gotten up from her bed.

"Elena," she began softly, "I'm okay, really. I'm sorry if I've been distant. It's not on purpose I've just been keeping myself busy. I mean I have the play and you've got"

"My new obsession with lemon grass and Kale?" Elena asked with a grimace and Caroline laughed.

"You can miss her too, she misses you." Caroline added impulsively because Katherine really hadn't shut up about her when they spoke, that and Klaus talk. And if she got to choose she chose sibling bickering every time.

"Some things aren't replaceable," Elena told absently touching her neck as she looked out the window in thought.

"Oh my god!" Caroline said in realisation and it startled Elena, "the necklace! Oh Elena I'm sorry, I forgot." She added softer when Elena frowned and shrugged. Katherine had stolen Elena's necklace in one of the times she cased the house when their parents died. Elena had cried for days when it went missing from her room, it was the last thing her mother gave her. It was a pretty silver necklace with a small purple stone; it had been something Mrs Gilbert had been waiting to give her.

"It's okay it was a long time ago,"

"I don't mean to throw your own words back in your face but," Caroline began carefully but Elena shook her head with a slight smile.

"I just wanted an apology. I never got one."

"Oh," Caroline said surprised by the notion and Elena frowned suspiciously at her friend's response.

"Oh what?" she repeated Caroline's words with a narrowed gaze.

"Does she know?" Caroline asked but continued when Elena glared annoyed at her vagueness. "Know to apologise." She clarified.

"That defeats the purpose," Elena told her flippantly before moving to the fridge to grab a drink.

"It's been years Elena! If you want to collect on an apology you've got to actually bring it up." Caroline told her sternly when she ignored her in favour of stabbing some box like drink with a straw.

"I don't think so," Elena said stabbing her straw a little harder in protest. It was coconut water.

"God you sisters are infuriating," Caroline said in frustration as she finished off her apple.

"Besides I said mean things when she left," Elena said after a moment of silence.

"'I'm sure you both did," Caroline nodded, knowing Katherine wouldn't have held back with her once the ball got rolling. Once their claws came out it was pretty vicious.

"I think she's really changed Care. But part of me just keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop." Elena told her with a sigh and Caroline smiled because they were finally having the conversation Elena had wanted to have weeks ago but was too afraid to start.

"I know, but she's your family, it's always going to feel that way because you care." Caroline sighed taking a big breath of air before she decided to continue with her advice a little reluctant to bring up old memories.

"Mum did it all the time when I had a bad day in high school. Failing a math test meant failing a math test to me, sure I'd freak out a little." She added and Elena scoffed both of them smiling because Caroline had been quite neurotic in high school.

"To her it meant I might be cracking. Every action and bad mood was scrutinised from a distance and it only made leaving that part of me in the dust harder, being reminded of it all the time... No one likes to be treated like their still something they're not. If you think she's changed then start treating her like she has."

Caroline nodded wearily afterwards when Elena stared at her blankly. She was relieved when a smile broke through the other girl's face, "fine I'll think about it." She mumbled disgruntled. "When did you become so wise?"

"I think it's the Shakespeare, and the fact that my life has become a life time movie." She added with a grin.

"Speaking of which me Damon AND Stefan are coming tomorrow night," Elena said proudly with a smile.

"Really? All together?" Caroline asked sceptically and Elena nodded digging around in her handbag for something.

"Uh huh, Stefan's bringing a date" she nodded, "you are our glue Caroline. It's your night; they'll behave and I'll pretend it's not weird." Caroline caught the flying projectile with a grin at the familiar black bag.

"You didn't forget!" she cried far too enthusiastically as she ripped open the lolly's bag, "and thanks Elena." She added referring to the play and the other girl nodded before re-joining her for their girl time.

-0-

"Are you going to ignore Niklaus forever?" Elijah asked with a sigh as he adjusted his tie in their bedroom mirror. Katherine had just gotten off the phone and from what he could gather and was in a bit of a mood.

"Maybe," she told him snippily before she found the shoes she planned to wear that day near his feet. It was a lie considering they were meeting today to go over a few things after he'd gotten home late last week. Didn't mean she couldn't do both.

"Well that's not a no… I guess now's as good as any time to tell you he's coming over for breakfast." Elijah tried to say nonchalantly but failed when Katherine's voice filled his ears. He didn't flinch from what he could only explain as years of practise.

"WHAT?" Katherine exclaimed annoyed at her fiancé's smile in response to her outburst.

"Our meetings at three," she grumbled looking at her phone, she knew this because she rescheduled it three different times.

"Apparently he's going away tonight," Elijah said with a shrug leaving their bedroom.

"What? Where? Elijah!" Katherine called after him following him through the corridor of their home. Katherine loved their place in LA; it was extravagant but not overtly so. Elijah had insisted they find a new place once they were newly engaged; something about new ground now they were building a life together. Katherine had rolled her eyes telling him that she'd lived with him a long time before he'd proposed. But he'd told her it was theirs now and Katherine couldn't ignore how stupidly warm and fuzzy that made her feel.

Their new life.

And after her chat with Caroline she now knew how she was going to get everything she wanted back. First she had to find that necklace. How hard could that be? She'd rip it off someone's neck if she had to.

"Good morning brother," Elijah called as he walked into the kitchen; Klaus had just let himself in. He nodded at Elijah and grimaced when he caught sight of Katherine behind him.

"Katherine," he spat out bitterly and was greeted by a whip of brown hair hitting his face when she walked straight past him.

He sighed trying to control his irritation, "I brought breakfast, didn't want EVERYTHING to go wrong this morning." He said with a smirk and a quick glance to Katherine who slammed something in the kitchen before he heard the click of the kettle.

"Elijah do you want tea?" Katherine asked still ignoring Klaus who rolled his eyes and Elijah sighed joining her in the kitchen, "why don't I do it?" He murmured quietly running his hand up the length of her arm in a calming gesture that she responded to.

"Fine I want coffee," she called out over her shoulder to join Klaus at the table. Elijah heard Klaus mutter something about Americans and wondered if it had been a good idea to leave them alone together after all. They somewhat civilly pulled out the pastry's, swapping when they pulled out what the other wanted in silence.

"So I was hoping we could do our thing now," Klaus began clearing his throat, "did Elijah tell you-"

"That you were spontaneously going somewhere vague and nonspecific without telling your publicist? Briefly." Katherine said icily bitting into her Danish. Klaus rolled his eyes; he didn't HAVE to tell her.

"Good." Was all he said and he was rewarded with a glare.

"So who were you on the phone to?" Elijah asked quickly for a change of conversation as he put Katherine's coffee in front of her. Katherine was midway through preparing herself to yell at Klaus, she smiled a little to sweetly at Elijah's question.

"Caroline," Katherine stated throwing Klaus a sharp smile as she allowed the name to roll off her tongue. She watched satisfied when Klaus almost spilled his tea mid sip.

"Right, is she well?" Elijah asked because even though Klaus was glaring at him he knew he'd want to know.

"Fine she called about Elena, told me I need to find a missing piece of jewellery to fix our relationship… Our family is crazy." Katherine added with an eye roll and Klaus snorted.

"No just you," he mumbled and winced when he was kicked underneath the table.

"What Jewellery?" Elijah asked with interest ignoring Klaus and Katherine smiled. He'd really been there for her this past month; she'd been a raging bitch since her 'save my relationship with my surviving family' had sunk like the titanic.

Katherine winced, it wasn't a proud moment. "Just Elena's necklace from our mother that I may or may not have stolen and sold five years ago. I barely remember doing it, don't worry I'll find it." she added waving her hand at the concerned look of Elijah as she spoke quickly.

Klaus scoffed, "sure that'll be easy."

"Sorry were you expecting the call to be about you?" Katherine asked with mock sympathy that made Klaus grip his mug tighter. "Because news flash buddy Caroline's not forgiving you."

"Katherine," Elijah chastised.

"What?! It's true, you may be okay with all this Elijah but I love Caroline like she's my little sister! That girl barely has anyone in her life, I'm not going to just sit here and be okay with it because he's YOUR brother. You can't just play with people's feelings Klaus!" Katherine yelled and Klaus stood up abruptly making the table move.

"Did it ever occur to you that I cared about her to? That this isn't killing me? You know what; Email me whatever it is I have to do next week, goodbye brother." Klaus said before he up and left the house.

The door didn't even slam.

What the actual fuck? Klaus hadn't even yelled at her. What was going on? That was literally the scariest fight she's ever had with him. He was to calm, too controlled.

_He was upset_, she realised. Truly and really upset.

"Oh my god." She muttered in realisation.

-0-

"Are you nervous?" Brady asked appearing behind her and scaring the shit out of her. She jumped three feet in the air clutching her chest in the tight bodice she was wearing.

She hit him, "not until now!" he laughed calmly. "Besides we got this," she told him confidently and he grinned at her in agreement.

"Damn straight, I'll see you out there." He winked at her before disappearing to a different part of backstage.

It's cool she's got this, she's Caroline freaking Forbes. She didn't look to find her friends or anyone she knew in the audience, Caroline never actually liked to look at anyone directly. It messed with her mojo.

Everything was going really well considering it was a college production. Nobody sucked to badly and Caroline thought Brady was doing a great job, she didn't realise until she was standing side stage that he had a lot of freaking lines and alone time. Watching him made her almost like Shakespeare, what was Brady doing studying Drama at Whitmore?

"Oh my god Care you were so good!" Caroline almost fell over from the force of Elena's hug when she spotted her friends in the foyer. Caroline smiled, "thanks Lena."

"Like that was seriously a hot kiss, way to go."

"Oh Jesus." Caroline muttered and she heard Stefan chuckle behind her. She wasn't wrong Brady certainly didn't seem gay in that moment. Stefan hugged her from behind picking her up slightly and she squawked turning in his embrace.

"Mum?" she asked incredulously when she saw the smaller blonde woman standing behind Stefan over his shoulder. She was here, she was actually here.

She hit Stefan upside the head and he let her down, "Hey!"

"Your hot date is my mother?" she hissed and he grinned cheekily at her.

"He was a perfect gentleman," her mother joked and Caroline allowed her to pull her into a tentative hug. She couldn't get over the fact that she'd come here to see her, and she wasn't even in uniform. It was freaking her out a little but she was happy, more than happy.

"You look nice," she admitted looking at her mother's pants and pretty blouse combo.

"You were amazing sweetie," She told her warmly and Caroline cleared her throat uncomfortably at the genuine affection in her voice.

"Thanks mum," she said returning the smile awkwardly.

"Yeah Blondie you didn't suck." She heard Damon say from behind her miraculously appearing behind Elena and she rolled her eyes when he broke the moment.

That was probably one of the nicest things he's ever said to her.

"I'm gonna grab a drink," Liz said to Caroline clearly saying she didn't want to encroach on her friend time and she smiled nodding distantly.

Caroline grabbed Stefan's arm, "thankyou." She said and he caught the meaning, her voice was thicker with emotion. She knew he would have been a big part of getting her here. He would have had to plan this a while ago and constantly remind her mother to make sure it actually happened. She knows he won't admit that to her but she's grateful none the less.

This was like the second school event her mother's ever been to for her in her whole life. She wouldn't forget this in a long time.

"Caroline dear you were amazing I cried!" Caroline was suddenly far too high in the air for her liking. It was then she realised she'd been lifted like a sack of potatoes by Brady's line backer boyfriend Danny.

"He lifted me to," she heard Brady say laughing not too far from her and she rolled her eyes.

"Oh my god I'm almost afraid of heights being all the way up here," Caroline told him and he set her down sheepishly. God he was weird, adorable like a puppy that was also built like a truck.

"So cast's throwing a party if you guys wanna come?" Brady said and Caroline smiled that he included her friends in his statement. Everyone agreed because there was a promise of free alcohol.

"I just gotta say bye to my mum and get my stuff from the dressing room I'll meet you guys there." She explained looking around for her mum who was in the corner.

"Mum!" Caroline called weaving her way around clusters of people, some reached out to tell her how good of a job she did and she smiled distractedly thanking them.

"So I'm gonna take off, I got a call from the station." Her mother explained apologetically once she got to her and it didn't upset Caroline like her mother obviously thought it would. She was surprised when Caroline pulled her into another hug, "That's okay."

She looked at her wearily and Caroline shook her head, "no really mum you just being here was enough. Thanks for doing this for me." She added and she watched a little mystified when her mother's eyes watered.

She didn't blame her they never talked like this, like they got along. Like they weren't just two people that happened to be related to one another.

Her mother cleared the emotion from her eyes with practise clearing her throat, "it's what mothers do right?" she said lightly and Caroline smiled at the underlining apology. It didn't matter though because this was enough, she didn't think she could handle it if they were normal all the time. It was too late for that, they both knew that.

She could hold onto this for a long while.

"Alright, well I'll talk to you next week?" her mother asked and Caroline nodded, she would call her.

Caroline sighed as she opened the door to her dressing room. This was turning out to be one exhausting emotional night for her. She almost fell over in surprise when he stood up from her chair.

The first thing she noticed was that he looked nervous, and then the bunch of pretty flowers he was holding. She noticed they were her favourite.

"Hello Caroline," he managed to get out first because apparently she was a gaping fish just standing there in the doorway.

"Klaus," she breathed out once she realised she hadn't spoken yet. "You're here." She said dumbly and he smiled at her. She wasn't immediately yelling at him so he took it as a positive sign stepping forward towards her.

"You didn't think I'd miss your big night did you?" he asked lightly and she blinked. He'd come all the way here to see her be in a stupid play?

She cleared her throat finding her bearings, "well you did spend a whole two weeks with us I'm sure you wanted to see how badly we ran it into the ground what with your name attached."

He rolled her eyes obviously expecting her snippy attitude but kept it in stride, "well I have a few notes. Duncan was horrible by the way." He added pulling a face and it made her laugh, she covered her mouth to halt it.

"Yeah we think it's all the hair gel he uses," Caroline shrugged as she began to walk further into the room to gather her things.

"You and Macbeth were both quite convincing," he said trying to keep the conversation afloat. He hadn't even offered the flowers to her yet thinking she'd throw them in his face.

God he hadn't been this nervous since he asked Julia Bishop to junior prom, it was pathetic. Caroline grinned at him rolling her eyes.

"Yes that's all Elena apparently took away from it," she muttered and Klaus smiled obviously happy she responding civilly towards him.

"Yes well he was better than I was expecting," Caroline lifted a brow at him.

"Is that a compliment?" she teased. What was she doing? She was mad at him.

_Mad, mad, mad…MAD_

He gave her a heart melting smile.

_Mad?_

_Focus Caroline._

_Mad._

"Credit where credit is due, I did help him after all." He added with a smirk.

_There it was_… all better, she almost thanked him for his cocky remark.

"So why are you hiding in my dressing room?" she asked clearing her throat when he stared at her a little to long for her to remain focused on collecting her stuff into her duffle bag.

He smiled sheepishly, "I didn't want to get caught by your teacher. I came in late and paid hush money at the door." he said with a shrug and she snorted.

"So you're not here to support our production?" she asked sarcastically and he sighed the irritation showing on his face for the first time since she stepped in here.

"Caroline," he almost groaned. He suddenly didn't look so put together as he swallowed his eyes boring into hers.

She sighed willing herself to remain quiet, he obviously came here to say something.

"I'm here for you, you know that." He said quietly his gaze never wavering, "would take these before I crush them?" he asked tiredly thrusting the flowers in her direction and to his surprise she took them.

He had a fifty fifty chance going in his head that she was going to throw them at him. He sighed in relief his confidence building back up again when she stared at him expectantly.

_You've been practising this speech all month, you've got this._

"Caroline I-"

Her phone rang and he wanted to hit something at the interruption, she looked slightly annoyed to as she dug around in the bag she was holding. It was ringing quite insistently.

She frowned when she read the name, it was her mother. That's weird they just spoke.

"Mum?" she asked confused.

"Caroline," her mother began seriously and she stiffened at the tone, "mum what is it what's wrong?" she asked immediately.

"Caroline it's your father,"

She turned away from Klaus who was rocking back and forth on his heels a flash of worry passed his face when her own face looked sombre all of a sudden.

"Times run out, they don't think he'll make it until morning." Her mother told her and she nodded forgetting she was on the phone. She cleared her throat, "okay thanks I'll- thanks." She hung up without another word.

Her decision was only made when she turned back to Klaus.

All she saw in that moment was Nick.

For the first time since she walked out of that restaurant she saw him as one person.

One that she needed.

"Can you drive me somewhere?" she asked thickly and she didn't regret her decision when he nodded immediately in unspoken understanding as he reached into his pocket to find his keys.

She didn't push him away when he slipped his hand into her shaking one as they walked quickly towards his car.

.

.

**AN: So yeah please don't be mad I've had a lot going on hence the late update. I'm going to try to get the next one up in the next couple of days but it might be a bit slower after that in the coming weeks because I'm having surgery so you'll have to bear with me. Thanks to tvdfanpam whose basically why I got my ass in gear today haha. Please review I love reading them. You guys are awesome. **


	14. Chapter 14

She'd changed her mind four times and counting. Klaus was certain they'd have to walk in and out of the hospital's foyer at least two more times before they made it to reception. He waited patiently though as he watched her pace reassuring her when she stopped to spout apologies muttering about how he could leave if he wanted to.

Yeah that wasn't happening.

Klaus knew bits and pieces about Caroline's relationship with her father. He didn't like how it reminded him of his own father. He gathered there was always more to the story than her saying that they never got along and that she hadn't seen him since she was younger.

He'd told her a couple of months ago that it was completely her choice if she wanted to air out any dirty laundry before he died. Klaus knew he wouldn't want to with his father there was no point but he wasn't Caroline and as he watched her turn away from the exit again he knew she needed to.

She needed this to move on.

He gently grabbed her shoulders and she jumped slightly to the touch but didn't pull away. He led her towards the desk and asked for directions to Bill Forbes' room when Caroline didn't speak. The nurse recognised him but he gave her a hard enough stare that she didn't comment. She nodded instead in understanding asking their relation to the patient.

"He's my father," she croaked out speaking for the first time and Klaus squeezed her shoulder in encouragement. The nurse gave them directions and Caroline allowed him to steer them in that direction without any fuss until they actually got to the door.

"Stop stop stop," she said suddenly panicked and Klaus let go of her quickly, his hands falling to his side to give her space. She sighed muttering another apology that he disregarded like the other ones.

"Take your time," he murmured and she snapped unintentionally.

"I can't take any more time he's dying; it's not something he can hold off while I build up my nerve!"

He didn't even flinch at her words and she sighed about to apologise when the door opened. "Hello?" a man in his mid-forties asked stunning both of them into silence.

Caroline stilled when the man recognised her, "Caroline?" he asked a little relieved and a little nervous.

"Do I know you?" she asked firmly and he shook his head sheepishly.

"No but Bill's talked about you, I'm Steven his partner." He explained but it did nothing to calm her.

"How's he doing?" Klaus asked clearing his throat when Caroline avoided the man's gaze and greeting completely. Klaus stepped closer to her sensing how uncomfortable she was. The man's eyes flickered to his in surprise but took on a sombre note at the question.

"He's lucid but doctors say it shouldn't be long now, maybe an hour. If you wanted to speak with him," he directed at Caroline who was looking hardly at the hospital door in silence.

"Could you give us a minute?" Klaus asked the man politely when Caroline showed no signs of responding and he muttered about getting coffee nodding between them as he left down the hall.

"Caroline love?" He called out softly and she blinked away from her trance to stare at him blankly.

"I'm going to sit over there," he pointed to a row of three plastic chairs in the hall and took her vague nod as acceptance. He sat down giving her space and even pretended to read a magazine whilst he watched her pace for a few more minutes in front of the door.

Caroline breathed in and out heavily using her arms to steel herself before she opened the door slowly, it creaked slightly with the effort.

Klaus tapped his foot impatiently soon after. Not that he wanted her to hurry but he was worried about her. Had she wanted him to come in? Should he have asked that? No, this was something she wanted to do herself.

_Or not at all with her reluctance._

He was startled standing up quickly when the door opened a few minutes later. Her expression was blank, her eyes almost dead as she looked up at him.

"I think we have to call a nurse or something… I think he's dead."

Klaus opened and shut his mouth a couple of times not foreseeing this, he wanted to comfort her but everything about her closed off expression and crossed arms told him to keep his distance. He could get the nurse.

He could do that.

He nodded quickly telling her as much unable to help himself as he passed her. He squeezed her shoulder which trembled slightly at his touch; she let out a shaky breath nodding when he murmured his intentions to her.

He stood beside Caroline as a few people dressed in scrubs rushed past them into the room followed by the man they spoke with earlier. Klaus ghosted his hand gently against her limp one as she stared at the open door listening to the people bustle about the dead man's room.

It was when they could hear the man from before cry that she intertwined their fingers together, bridging the gap between them. He squeezed reassuringly and didn't say a word when she pulled him down the hallway and out of the hospital.

Klaus was at a loss for words as he rolled the coffee mug between his hands. He sat opposite Caroline in the booth; she hadn't even touched her coffee.

"That's going to get cold," he said it to fill the space as he leant backwards on the split vinyl of the booth in the diner.

"I just can't believe your drinking coffee in front of me," there was a tired mirth to her words and he responded with an eye roll. It's clear she'd rather keep the conversation light, even though she'd barely said anything since they left the hospital.

"I'm going to need this to drive," he gestured before taking another long sip.

Caroline gave him an assessing look; she opened her mouth and then closed it again turning to look outside. Barely anything was illuminated at this time.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked because he hadn't yet, he was positive she didn't but he had to try. He wasn't really good at comforting people but he could try for Caroline, he would.

He then realised from her cagy body language that she may have wanted his support but it by no means meant that she trusted him again.

He'd have to earn that back.

She tried to smile but it came out as more of a grimace, she shook her head. "She was right I would have regretted it." She turned to look back out the window and Klaus silently hoped she would continue because he wasn't sure what she meant.

They would have maybe spoken a few words before it happened. He was sure of it. He'd scanned the first three pages of the magazine he'd been holding. They couldn't have had some long conversation that restored their relationship before his passing. It wasn't plausible. He swallowed the thought though as it rose bubbling into a question.

Caroline sighed when she caught look of his pensive expression. The seriousness of it was throwing her through a little bit of a loop. She didn't want to talk about her father but she didn't want them to leave everything the way it was anymore either. Ever since that moment in the dressing room she wasn't satisfied with pretending he no longer existed. She was pretty sure she could never forget him now; she didn't want to lose him. Not now, not when she needed him again. Like when they'd first met.

"When are you going home?" she asked turning away from him again, hoping they'd have a little time before he left.

He swirled around the lukewarm coffee he was force feeding himself with a frown and sighed, "tomorrow."

"I want to go home now, if that's okay." Caroline added absentmindedly and he merely nodded in compliance before downing the rest of the subpar coffee in one go.

They were a mile outside of Whitmore when Klaus' mind started reeling for some way to start conversation with her again. He didn't want to leave things the way they were, but he didn't want to appear insensitive given her personal matters.

He opened his mouth but she spoke first.

"Why didn't you just tell me? Am I really that… untrustworthy?" she said bluntly but trailed off not knowing the right word to use to express the pain he'd put her through last month.

He clenched the steering wheel, "of course not."

She was silent and he sighed trying to gather his scattered thoughts, he'd had a plan. He'd had flowers and a speech and timing.

He'd had the timing.

"I- you terrify me." he spit out finally in response and her gaze flicked up to his confusion flittered across her face.

"I don't, I don't have a lot of people to really talk to in my life... Not like how we do. You're so candid and funny and drink way too much coffee," he stopped to chuckle slightly, "you always made me smile and put my life in perspective… I enjoyed our… connection, it wasn't hard or fake like a lot of other things in my life." He admitted running a hand through his hair as he tried to focus on the road. He wasn't sure if looking at her was harder or not for this conversation.

Caroline felt stunned into silence at his admission and he cleared his throat continuing when she didn't say anything.

"When I met you, you hated me. I found you and you didn't even like me." He let out another laugh and it was slightly bitter. Caroline realised how hard this was for him, because he was right in his note that day with the cupcakes. They knew each other; Nick didn't like emotional speeches or vulnerabilities. He didn't like rejection. _He doesn't do feelings or relationships. _She reminded herself of the times he'd told her as much. **There's no such thing as perfect or men on white horses, just people to let you down. Over and over again.**

"That's not true," Caroline corrected softly pushing a few strays of her hair behind her ear offering him a small smile.

"I had to buy you coffee to like me," he told her with a scoff and she laughed, "That's actually a very common process. All my friends have done it." She noted he grinned slightly at the mention of him being categorised as her friend again.

"I just wanted to know you, we've always been so-"

"Surreal?" she offered and he nodded distractedly.

"I never meant to hurt you Caroline; I'd never do that to you intentionally. Not you,"

"But you did," she begun gently when he stopped speaking. "Klaus I- were you ever going to tell me?" she asked the real question that had been slowly eating away at her insides sprung from her mouth without much thought.

"Yes," he said firmly. It was something he'd sorted out in his time away from her. He was having a hard time trying to figure out how, but he was reluctant to admit to her what it all came down to.

Fear.

Elijah had been right; it was why he'd been so angry with him that day. It brought about all of his old insecurities, his father's words that were too far embedded into his skull to remove. But he wasn't really all that afraid now; because every time they spoke he felt part of those scars closing inch by inch. The only thing he was afraid of was losing Caroline.

He wasn't ashamed of that anymore.

Caroline nodded in acceptance of his answer.

"You don't have to say anything right now. Especially now I just wanted you to know that," he nodded afterwards signalling he had finished what he wanted to say.

"I forgive you," Caroline began softly but firmly turning towards him and he flashed his eyes towards her hopefully at her words. She sighed a veiled pained expression crossed her face for a moment.

"But I'm not sure if I can trust you."

The car stopped rather abruptly after their conversation had seemingly reached an impasse. Caroline allowed him to walk her to her dorm room in the dark after his insistence muttering something about lurkers as he directed her towards her building following the sparse lights. This place had terrible lighting.

She smiled realising that he did know where she lived, "I can't decide whether its creepy or not that you know where I live." She mussed into the silence as they stepped quietly over the threshold.

He chuckled at her comment scratching the back of his head somewhat sheepishly breaking his cool façade. "I did say I tried to talk to you, you've got some chatty class mates. Then of course I had to make sure I sent the cupcakes to the right place but your friend helped with that."

Caroline's head whipped around her hair flying sharply with the effort, "what friend?!" she demanded.

Shit.

Sorry Macbeth.

He winced but grinned in spite of his obvious slip up shrugging, "I may have had a chat with Brady…a second one where I was sober." She raised an eyebrow in question and he hurried along, "I just told him I wanted to send you a little something he didn't really know anything beside the fact I was..."

"Grovelling," she cut over him with a smirk and he pulled a face in disagreement.

"I was NOT grovelling," he told her with a glare and she laughed, the noise relieves him though so he smiles. "I thought you might be hungry, did you honestly not like them?" he asked her his voice probing and she smiled at his frown.

It was probably the best I'm sorry gift she's ever received, not that she wanted to say that.

"I ate 187, besides the fact I'm paranoid I'm going to wake like a balloon suddenly in the morning… I loved them." He grinned widely at her statement before looking her up and down shamelessly just to see if he could still make her blush.

"I think your fine," he told her lowly and she rolled her eyes as they turned down her hall. Ignoring the way her breath may have hitched.

"Although I debated about getting you a hundred cups of coffee but then they would have gone cold…" Klaus continued without missing a beat his tone light again. "And then you probably would have gone into some kind of caffeine shock and died from trying to drink it all… Would have made my apology redundant." He told her with a smirk and she snorted.

"If you killed me? Yes probably." She said flatly and he grinned.

"I couldn't go to prison Caroline; I'm far too pretty for that." He joked realising they were all too soon at her door.

"Klaus?" Caroline asked timidly as she reached her and Elena's dorm.

"Hm?"

She turned to face him, "thank you for tonight. For being there I know it was probably really weird and I'm sorry-"

"Caroline," he cut her off gently and she looked up to his eyes surprised by the gentleness she saw in them. "Your father just died, you don't have to be sorry about anything."

The words fell on her like cold water and it must have shown on her face if his next reaction was anything to go by. She let out a shaky breath and ran her hand through her hair clumsily, she swallowed. "Right okay…well goodnight Klaus." She put her hand on the handle and she watched a flurry of conflicting emotions pass his face before he seemed to decide something.

She was suddenly pulled into the most tender hug she had ever received. He hugged her like she was made of glass; every part of her he touched was filled with warmth. And by the way he tensed slightly before she put her arms around him to return the gesture it was clear he didn't hug often. He smelled of pine and fancy aftershave, she muffled her increasingly laboured breathing against the shirt of his chest.

She shouldn't have let him hug her; all she wanted to do now was cry.

Klaus seemed to understand this and pulled her slightly tighter towards himself to somehow hold her together before running his own hand through her hair gently, "do you want me to stay?" he whispered against her shaking form after a minute but she didn't want to speak afraid it would come out strangled.

The moment was interrupted when the door to her room was slowly opened, "Caroline?" Elena called out hopefully and Caroline took one more moment to steal herself before pulling away from Klaus.

He looked between the two friends for a moment, feeling better about leaving her alone when Elena reached out immediately for her hand. Her eyes soft with understanding, he remembered her texting her friends in the car on the way to the hospital. They would all know what would have transpired.

If she was surprised by his presence with Caroline she didn't show it.

"Are you going to be alright sweetheart?" he murmured leaning back down close to her ear, she turned her head and nodded giving him one last small smile of gratitude in return. He impulsively bent downwards and left a chaste yet lingering kiss against her temple mumbling a promise to talk to her soon.

"I'll email you," she said softly and he smiled at the promise before giving Elena a nod and departing slowly down the hall.

"Care?" Elena asked when they still stood in the doorway, her friend's hand gripping hers tightly. She blinked and shook her head before she walked through to their darkly lit room. "I'm so sorry." She told her somewhat helplessly as her friend's eyes seemed to glaze over. Caroline nodded telling her all she wanted was some sleep she didn't refute when Elena slipped into the same bed as her and held her until she fell asleep.

"Do you have room for a third?" Caroline blinked groggily at the sound of his voice but it was Elena who almost fell off the bed from fright.

"STEFAN? How the hell did you get in here!" she protested clutching her chest as her ex-boyfriend loomed over Caroline's bed.

"I have a key," he told her obviously unblinking and Elena rolled her eyes when all Caroline did was open up the blanket for him in invitation. They all mushed together and Caroline sighed contently as she felt Stefan's familiar embrace and rested her head onto his shoulder.

"Is this weird for anyone else?" Elena asked and she sighed exasperated when Stefan and Caroline both replied "nope" at the same time causing them all to laugh.

"Although I think we have another minute before one of you falls out or it gives way underneath us." Caroline mused and Stefan scoffed in offense. Like he was their weight tipping point for a bed!

Elena got up untangling herself from her side of the blankets almost falling over in the process, she didn't mind when it garnered her a giggle from Caroline. "I'll go get the breakfast shall I?" Elena suggested and Caroline shrugged she wasn't all that hungry. But she did want coffee.

"Thanks Lena," she told her as the girl walked around in a hurry to put on something a little more public acceptable. Stefan covered his eyes when she stripped right there near her open wardrobe.

"Jesus Elena, we can't sit close in a bed but you can do that?" he muttered and Caroline hit him with a pillow almost knocking him over.

Elena smirked with a shrug as she pulled on a sweat shirt, "nothing you haven't seen before. I was talking about how weird it'd be if we all had a threesome before."

Caroline threw the pillow at Elena, "ew Elena gross."

"Gross me or gross Stefan?" she asked in mock seriousness and she rolled her eyes when Stefan watched for her answer his face curious. She smirked, "sorry Stefan, me and Elena already have lesbian friend necklaces." she joked and Elena laughed making a show of pulling the chain from around her neck and winking before she left calling, "you know it!"

Stefan sighed, "You make me feel horribly emasculated."

"Oh please don't give me that crap you have to be secure to use as much gel as you do." He rolled her eyes at her response before sinking back down onto her bed.

"How are you doing?" he asked quietly and she sighed in response.

"Okay," she nodded, "I'm not really sure." She amended honestly and he nodded.

Caroline couldn't help but think about how they were sitting here like this only a month ago, except it was about Klaus… _oh their re-friendshiping was not going to go over well with Stefan._

_Well if there was ever a time where he had to agree with everything I said today would be it._

"Every time I feel one way I get pulled and feel another. I feel sad but honestly? A little relieved…does that make me a horrible person?" Caroline asked quietly drawing patterns on her bedspread with her finger.

"No it makes you a remarkably well adjusted one," he told her firmly and she smiled at how sure he seemed.

"I don't feel like it, I feel not a lot…" she guessed it would take some adjusting time.

Stefan nodded in understanding and she briefly told him about Steven, her dad's supposed partner.

"Did you say anything?"

"Hi I'm Bill's daughter. You've probably never heard of me because I've been legally barred from seeing him since I was twelve." Caroline drew out sarcastically and he winced.

"He knew me though; I guess we'll never know how much he told him… Despite everything I'm glad he had someone before it was over." Caroline said nodding. Along with all the confusing feelings she had she had closure, he was gone now there was no point in holding onto painful memories anymore.

"What did Klaus say when you were there?" her head snapped up from Elena's voice. She glared lightly at her and she pulled a face noticing Stefan and muttered "shit."

"Klaus was there?" Stefan asked anger edging into his voice. "You called Klaus?" he asked incredulously remembering how upset Caroline had been lately because of him.

"Klaus HAPPENED to be there when my mother called, he was in my dressing room." she mumbled and rolled her eyes at the wistful expression Elena sported as she handed her a coffee.

"He came to see your performance?" she asked and Caroline snapped her fingers to dislodge her dreamy expression.

"Yes he's gone back to LA today." She muttered with a frown.

"You guys made up right? Things looked pretty cosy in the hallway last night," Elena said clearly thinking of the same moment she'd interrupted last night.

Caroline glared slightly, "he was just comforting me." She snapped and wanted to take it back when Elena recoiled, a worried frown on her face.

"But we did make up for the most part, we're talking." She supplied more gentle and Elena nodded.

"Are you sure this is a good idea Care, after everything? Right now?" Stefan urged quietly beside her concerned.

"All I know is that he was there last night Stefan. I haven't forgotten were just moving forward now. I want to be friend's again." She added ignoring Elena's disbelieving look at her last words. She knew all about her opinion on what kind of friends they should be.

"You have realised he wants more than that right?" Elena asked and it lacked teasing so she considered the question.

"It doesn't matter, friends is all I can do." She said firmly and she believed he wouldn't push the matter. Despite the weirdness they were friends first, Klaus knew that. Especially now.

.

.

**So my surgery sucked more than anticipated I had to stay a lot longer, but on the plus side I'll be better soon, hopefully. Thanks for all the well wishes and continuing love for the story, you guys are just gonna have to bear with me for a while… I like rewrote this a bunch of times, it originally had a scene with Caroline and her father but it didn't gel with everything else. They'll open up to each other eventually, Caroline's still hurting and Klaus has only just apologised properly. Finally. I also had no idea how to end the chapter.**

**and to the person who asked yes that was totally a Gilmore girls reference, I think Caroline's coffee addiction might have also been somewhat inspired by them haha**


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